The Estrellar

This story happened 34 years after the Horiathon Battle. Although things had eased up a lot, Elves are still considered as not serious and not reliable in most parts of the Human societies in the Nyidiath, and the tradition of confining them to the arts is still strong. Things are advancing, though, and the fall of the Bubacarian dictatorship reduced to only one the list of countries still officially discriminating against the Elves: the Scythan Popular Republic. More, many Human activists are now defending the Elves. Unbeknownst to them, this is an old tradition, dating back to the Exodus, when humanitarian or religious people fed the expelled Elves along the Trail of Tears.

Interrogations on the meaning of life

Milton Earmann is a young Human, of the new generation born after the Horiathon Battle, who never experienced the discrimination before. For them, seeing Elves in the street is natural, together with peace and democracy.

Milton’s thing is that, since early in his life, he is intrigued by what consciousness is. What is this elusive thing, that nobody was ever able to catch in a test tube or detect with a meter? Yet we see it all the time we are... conscious!

He is not satisfied with the religious explanation. Milton was raised in atheism, this is still the norm in the Nyidiath, despite various groups wanting to relive the ancient religions, like the «Old Age» movement. He thinks that there must be something else than just «believing» and doing rituals, as beautiful and festive they may be. In more, few of the ancient religious meanings had survived the Revolution and the century of materialist iconoclasm which followed. The new followers had to reinvent a meaning, in more of recovering the rituals from fragments of text or mutilated statues. But playing the hierophant is easy, to really discover relevant spiritual meaning is another story. Only the cult of the UNIQUE had survived in secret, as it always did. But the holders of this ancient spirituality are few, with their voice covered by several noisy sects. In any case, most architecture codes are still forbidding double sloped roofs, symbol of the UNIQUE.

Instead, Milton is feeling basically as a scientist, so that he has to find a scientific explanation to consciousness. For this purpose, he had engaged in neurology studies in the Newtell Science University, or Tellutaar Science University as people are calling it now. And he is a good student, which led him to his final year. He had successfully submitted a thesis on the neurological underpinning of hearing, which promises him a golden career in science research. Or a teacher chair in Medicine. Discussions are already in progress for this. He is well esteemed by his peers, well supported by a wealthy and loving family, and a marriage planned with the beautiful Annette Dunning. (Well, think «Annette Barbaroux», and you will guess what will happen). In short, he has everything to be happy, after the mainstream social criteria.

Now he has a long summer solstice holiday starting. Maybe his last free holidays before his marriage. But he does not engage in some exotic voyage or tourism. He knows that later, with the marriage and the work, he may no longer be able of doing freely what he wants. So he clothes casually and takes some distance in a peaceful mountain house his family has. They don’t use it because there is no road nearby, the only way to get in is to climb a path with a backpack.

This break is much needed for Milton, who can recenter on some basic things he was distracted off by this race for studies, before starts the race for work. So he wanders in the surrounding woods, enjoying the pristine silence of nature, the flowers, the bird songs, the freshness of the leaves under the warmth of the sun. Just being here, without stake or justification, just letting the beautiful vibes of life enter in him.

Once a week, he climbs down the path, to meet his mother or one of his sisters bringing him food for the week. But none ever went up with him, instead they speak of their worries and stakes, about what they call «their life»: the sister in the tennis tournament, the prosecution in progress with the neighbor about his tree dropping its leaves on their lawn, all this sort of useless thing which look so important for them. But when this blather stops and he is back in the sunny nature, their futility is blatant, enormous.

The sojourn in nature ends with a storm wetting his bedding and clothes. Indeed the old house needs some basic repair, but the family does not want to spend money in this «useless» building.

Facing the perspective of engaging again in this so absorbing «social life», Milton suddenly has an epiphany: consciousness is not about a fight or a competition, it is about enjoying life, enjoying beauty. Enjoying being, enjoying consciousness itself! And maybe sharing this with others... But with who? With Annette? She speaks only of clothes, shoes and tennis! With his university colleagues? That is more complicated. But he has to try.

Milton realizes that neurology studies the brain – what it does very well. But it does not study consciousness itself! Not even it apprehends it! As he understood, consciousness is not just the production of the neurons: it has its own stakes, purposes and ways. Where is all this coded in the brain? The map of the brain shows reflex paths and all sort of biological or sensory things, but no neurons of the purpose of life!

He is sure, if there were any, he would have found in his laboratory. He gets in his mind the map of the neural circuits of hearing, that he contributed to clarify. Nerves arrive from the ear in this brain area. Well, but how it is determined what note it is? These neurons are all identical!! How the different sensations appear, then? There is no further layers of neurons for this, just an intricate tangle seemingly randomly linking the hearing area to various other parts of the brain.

Milton has to seek for a solution for this conundrum, when the new University year starts. He is entrusted with a secondary chair to teach basic neurology, and a place in a laboratory, about finding the neural cause of several diseases. Good things indeed, and useful. But this double occupation brings him an overwhelming work load, and very few time to think at his new understanding of life.

By lack of further track, Milton set his new understanding asides in a corner of his preoccupations. But this is not the end. A part of the puzzle may be missing. Let us wait and see.

In the short autumn equinox holidays, the weather is nice and warmer than usual. He thought at inviting Annette to his mountain refuge. Just for one day, because in their bourgeois milieu it is forbidden to be intimate before the marriage. What wrong in sharing his love of nature, he thinks. So, while driving, he explains what he felt when he was up there. Her «hmm hmm» seem approving, so he encourages her climbing the path.

They do 50m... He did not paid attention, but she is wearing stiletto heels, which are totally inadequate for the rugged path! So she starts being angry and asks to get back to the car! She sulks afterward, during the whole journey back. Him, he is mortified, with a strong guilt as if he did something bad. It is the first time something unpleasant happens with her.

The incident did not ended there: three days later it is his father who does him the lesson. Not about her gaffe with the stiletto heels, but about his understanding of life! For the father, what is important is money, social statute. Especially, he concludes, «their family must continue». Since Milton is the only boy, this «duty» falls on him. It is does not look like a scolding, it is said of the friendly tome of the father explaining something to an 8 years old son. But what more humiliating, when we are an adult? In more, he senses a veiled threat. Later on this day, he also got remarks by his mother and his two sisters! He is so much taken by surprise with all this, that he is unable of any organized reply, just muttering «hmm hmm» which hopefully seem approving. Two days after it is his future family in law!

Milton ended to understand that he did nothing bad, but that them are at fault, for some reason. How could they LOVE to spend their entire lives in this futile competition without stake, in the constant noise of the television? There must be some wrong understanding, something failed to put in place in their mind. Now that he is autonomous (with his good pay as a teacher), he is not needing them anymore. But it is his family, and Annette his fiancée... He is still attached to them, and moving away would feel like an amputation. Until then, his family was enough for him to feel loved, and he never felt a need to make friends elsewhere. Big mistake, because if he leaves now, he would be alone.

Milton is starting to feel the plight of all those who advance: to find themselves alone, rejected by the majority of stupids.

After this experience, he is a bit afraid to speak of this experience in the University.

Well, he tries, but in an indirect way, so as to avoid disclosing his own interest: «some people think that consciousness exists independently and...» The laughter of his peers leaves him no illusion. «Do not lose time with that», in a paternalist tone, with a threatening nuance: «Two years ago a teacher was expelled from the University for evoking these nonsense in a teaching». So his attempt seems failed: he cannot share his understanding with his peers, they are totally useless. Yet their replies tells him an important information: they know of what he is speaking about! They have vocabulary, and names of people defending these ideas. They even say that it is «the Elve’s theory of consciousness». Is this why they reject it? He knows of the still pervasive anti-Elf racism, not expressing openly but still making a lot of things difficult. Could it be that they reject scientific theories just because the author is an Elf? This is not science, but plain old prejudice.

Milton is again mortified, as if he was himself wrong. But he forces himself to laugh with his peers, so that not to raise their suspicion. But now everything is clear in his mind. Could it be that a wide majority is wrong? Including scientists? And that they reject the idea itself, and the people who found it? It so much resembles the ancient religious persecutions against the nascent science... It already was «the opinion of the majority»!. Despite the growth of democracy and peace, there still is a lot of very visible evils and injustices going on in this Nyidiath world. The rejection of consciousness would be just one of these. Kinda continuation of the ancient religious taboos and persecutions, re-clothed in science. That a taboo survives a complete change of concepts and paradigms is not astonishing, after all, for a neurologist. It is just basic neurosis. And there are other examples, like the tens of years of backward fight against Relativity, extra-Nyidiathan life or climate change.

But his attempt did not really failed: now he has a lead. And even several!

With Internet, he quickly finds the professor who had been expelled: Pr. Robert G. Jahn. Unfortunately, he died just some weeks after, from a cancer. That must have been horrible for him, to be destroyed socially, just when his own body was rotting with metastasis. And how low and coward from his peers, to attack him while he was unable to defend himself. Indeed they did not needed to expel him, since he would never come back anyway. And these people pretend to be scientists?

Oh, the whole affair is in Nyidipedia! Without surprise, they despise the professor, without giving a real motive. But they also give a list of «accomplices», several of them being Elves! And even associations.

So Milton just has to explore these tracks. Problem, he is still living with his parents and sisters, and they use to look at his computer screen at any time. So he quickly closes the wikipedia page when his elder sister arrives. Until now, he was not feeling these looks as an inconvenience. Could it be that they monitor him? What he understood as sharing his activities would be in fact a surveillance? Or just that they spontaneously have this disrespectful way of living? He has to be careful not to become paranoid either. The fact remains, they often commented what is on his screen, and even emitted judgments. He thought these were friendly remarks, but he now realizes that he often felt mortified, and even he changed several times his ways to please his family. So better not to show them his new interest, he risks unpleasant remarks, being pressured, and perhaps worse, with this heretic topic. He already had to stage a «healing» and «regrets» about his consciousness taking in the mountain home.

Using his computer in the university lab would not be better, since its content and web history can be checked through the university’s intranet.

He could take profit of the absences of his family. But all four absent all together is becoming more and more rare. At random, or as a surveillance?

Then he gets a small laptop with a wireless internet, that he can use safely from his car. That way, he can do a more extensive search for names, and associations. They have websites where they expose stuff on consciousness and parapsychology. But Milton quickly finds that a good share of this content is fake, sectarian or misleading. This is the danger of a field of science research let out of any academic control: anybody can pretend to be a scientist, a psychologist, a guru, a priest, a medium, or what else, and spread boosting disinformation, discrediting the whole field and destroying the sincere seekers. Then Nyidipedia just has to advertise the fake ones, and ignore the genuine researchers. Still they have to list the good ones among the bad ones, in order to spread the discredit on both. This is how Milton finally gets to the entrance of the network of the good ones. But it is a detective work, since the rot can hide under nice paint!

He then start some email exchanges or forum posts, anonymized. He summarily describes his experience in the mountain, and asks for explanations. Most of the time he get no replies, or replies showing that the person did not shared his new understanding. Some of these even coax him toward dubious groups, buying their books, etc.

He finally finds a small number of people seeming to understand him. Better, they even have vocabulary about his experience: «consciousness taking», «awareness of nature», «instant of super-consciousness». He is explained that this happens spontaneously in «mind emptiness», when our «consciousness flow» stops «grasping» or «attachment» to «mundane thoughts». This is so different of the usual religious naive moralizing, busy at controlling only our behavior, without examining the intents and feelings leading to the said behavior.

At this point, Milton starts to rent a small flat for him alone. «Closer from his work, to save commuting time» he told his inquisitive family. But at the opposite side from them, so that their invasive visits would be rare enough for him to take a breath in between. He displays the small laptop in the main room, with news sites or movies. If they arrive unexpectedly, the door to his bedroom is always locked, under the pretext of having «confidential professional documents». Still they do remarks toward the closed bedroom door, wondering of he was becoming homosexual or something, ha ha ha ha! Well better to leave them think like that. Homosexuality is still heavily frowned upon in their bourgeois milieu. But the University is not caring at all, they even have a respectful cohabitation program, so that these accusations will not make him lose his job!

Finally he installs a good computer and Internet access in the locked bedroom, so that he can freely communicate with his new friends, without anybody else spying. Well, this is not «secret», but, after spending all his life in a minute to minute scrutiny, Milton is suddenly discovering the huge advantages of privacy. Probably his family sensed his change well before himself, hence their «kind» maniacal surveillance.

This leads him to the long winter solstice holidays, where he has spare time. Happily Annette does not want to be alone with him in his «boy’s lair», by fear of being considered a woman of low morality. So her visits are rare, and never alone. And about the marriage, she wants to complete her law studies first, which would not happen before the next summer. Milton finds strange to entrust a law role to somebody unable to walk along a forest path or to drive a nail. Which kind of justice will she provide, then?

His more thorough investigations learn him than, unfortunately, the topic of consciousness is besieged by cults and all sorts of wackos attempting to ensnare newbies like him. And they often success in doing so, as indicated by the number of their followers. So he has to be very cautious. He sets a list of criterion to detect them.

The Sanduak meeting

He is finally invited in a meeting, in a town further north of Tellutaar, called Sanduak. Before the lowering of the ocean levels, it had been a harbor, but today it is just a small city, although with interesting monuments and a museum. The ancient harbor basin has been arranged in a beautiful park, surrounded by the walls of the former quay. The lighthouse had been proudly preserved too, and they sometimes light a fire up there, during festivals. We can also visit several temples and monasteries which survived the Revolution (although ransacked down to the plumbing). This brilliant past, and the progressive mayor office, makes of Sanduak a favorite «summer camp» for the intellectuals and artists, with numerous events, theater plays, expositions, taking place in several halls of different sizes. Some smart entrepreneurs had set up mini-hotels for conference goers, with rooms reduced to «bee hive cells» in order to make them as affordable as possible.

The meeting is actually a conference, in a small room half full with all sorts of people, and even children. The theme is on parapsychology. To be frank, as a scientist, Milton is not keen for that. But wherever he hears about consciousness experiences, «unexplained» phenomena are just next door. So probably if he is patient, his own interest, consciousness experiences, will show up soon. Well, there is an immemorial religious taboo on «magic». And if it was with parapsychology as with consciousness experience, a religious taboo which survived the atheist revolution, to become a science taboo? People do not change their deeply ingrained neurosis for just a superficial change of wording or ideology. There indeed are numerous other examples of ancient religious taboos still active, and even still enforced, like on contraception and on extranyidiathan life. Even the strange rules on arranging the spoons are still common, right down to the university cafeteria! And books on history of science never forget to mention that the first scientists to defend Relativity had been expelled from the University. So that there is nothing new here.

Milton does not learn much in the speech, so that, when the time of questions arrives, he explains shortly his experience, and asks about its nature or meaning. It is the first time he speaks about it publicly, and he feels his cheeks becoming warm! The speaker explains that it is an experience which can happen to anybody, in certain conditions. He also adds that he can trust the general feeling he received, but not take the experience as a literal «message» or a «mission».

But there are other questions, and soon the conference is finished. There is a hubbub of people speaking and gathering around the book selling desk. Milton is happy to get a confirmation, but he is frustrated not to have more explanations. Just that the experience is relatively common, after all, but most people continue their life without knowing where to place this piece of the puzzle.

This excellent image arises in his mind: they do not find a place for this piece of the puzzle, because their mind is already full with false pieces, like opinions, prejudices, ideologies, etc. They then have to remove opinions and other parasitic though, so that the new experience finds its place and makes sense. Many never do that, unfortunately, so much they are grasping at their opinions as at a life jacket.

Suddenly, Milton hears somebody speaking to him. It is a quite ordinary looking man, with a common suit.

«Sir, we are interested in people who really had had such experiences. If you want, we can speak a bit more»

Soon they are in an animated discussion, while the conference room is emptying of the attendance. But there still are some people around the lecturer and the books selling table. Milton feels that obviously this person had the same kind of experience, but that he also knows more than him. That is interesting, but Milton is still wary of the possibility of a cult recruiter. Well, a recruiter has little chances with him, lol

Now the main lights of the conference room are switched off, only remains one above the table. Some remaining persons are proceeding through a door, into a smaller room besides.

«Please come in» makes his new friend. He enters. This place looks like a classroom, save that the teacher desk is used for a buffet, while the chairs are arranged in a loose circle.

There are a dozen people here. Milton goes to sit on the nearest available chair. But something unexpected happens: he is sitting on somebody. He gets up swiftly, but the chair is empty. He tries again, but this time it is an imperious command not to sit here. Puzzled, he realizes that everybody is sternly looking at him, as a court or a jury would do. Well, he had in one stroke the definitive proof of two things: parapsychology phenomenon are real, and these people are dead serious.

«This is MakTar’s chair»

Then: «You are totally welcome here. But please bring another chair for you, this one is already used» and they all laugh, dispelling the court-like ambient.

MakTar, Milton knows this name: the god of war of the Elves, considered as a renegade God by the ancient religions. Well, this is the popular lore. But cultivated people also know that he is the god of science and technology.

His new acquaintance explained to Milton:

«Long ago, we scientists invoked the protection of MakTar for science. During two millennia of religious persecution, this was much needed. Today, science seems free, but it is not really what antic scientists 2000 years ago wanted, and even less the generous vision of the Century of Enlightenment (Note of the Author: just before the Revolution). Today mainstream science is heavily politically oriented, corseted, its academies funded by atheist governments, instrumentalized and even weaponized to foster a materialistic society which can be managed underhand by commercial interests. The forge masters class, as some still call them. Today this expression is ridiculed, but the origin of most large fortunes has been traced to finery forges before the coal age. So you understand why these blokes do not want any spiritual science: their grasp on society would crumble down from inside. This is why they have eliminated the religions, and used the Revolution to foster capitalism instead of an egalitarian society. This is why today they are still fighting parapsychology, understanding of life, or consciousness taking as you had. People publicly stating having one are laughed at, and sometimes persecuted. Many had trouble with heir family, some even landed in psychiatric hospitals. This is why we maintain a presence in Internet forums, in order to try to warn people with such conferences. But our real purpose is not public.»

-But... but... tries Milton. MakTar is religion too? Belief?»

Somebody else explains:

«Ha ha not really belief. MakTar had a physical existence, this was proved some years ago, from documents found back in ancient caches in Kondo, written from direct witnesses. The media do not speak much of this finding, but all the intellectuals know. Today MakTar is still around, as a spiritual entity. Well, it is not him directly who is sitting on His chair, but you noticed that there is indeed something, despite the chair is physically empty. This serves us as a test for the sincerity and reliability of people entering in our group. Had you not felt this presence, we would simply proceed with toasts and a discussion on generalities, before saying good bye. And you would never suspect anything. This protects us from infiltration by hostile or disruptive persons. This is how MakTar is still protecting science, the real science which includes consciousness.

-MakTar played a very important role in the History of the Elves. For instance, He inspirited the design of the Horiathon crossing ships of the Exodus. Without Him, those boats would not exist, and from here there would be no Exodus. Most of these were dismantled to recover their materials, but a dozen were kept intact in the Dauriath, for the History records. They are still here today, and I personally visited one. They were incredible machines engineered to withstand the terrible shock of the splashing down on the Dauriath. A complex truss of wooden planks, designed to absorb the energy of the shock, by controlled deformation of some parts. Witnesses report a din of creaking and cracking noises, and seeing planks sliding on each other in their restrains, as planned. In the surviving ship I saw, which splashed sideways, the gangway took a visible zigzag shape! They were very advanced, given the poor Middle Age technology that we had by the time, and more akin to space ships than to boats. Today a similar truss is used in our space rockets.

-MakTar also inspirited the musical notations. This is how several independent elven communities developed very similar systems, despite being unable to communicate by the time.

-In ancient times, MakTar helped the defense of the Elves against primitive Humans, who waged innumerable wars against them. But today things are totally different. Elves and Humans must work together, to prepare for the Great Marvel in nine centuries. This will happen only when everybody works together in peace. MakTar is now working for this. He is no longer the God of War.»

That makes a lot for Milton. He realizes that half of these people are Elves. Clothed as Humans, but we still feel that they are different. Their facial expressions are more harmonious, more free, more serene, their smile always ready. This is why sociopaths are able to unmistakably recognize Elves even when they are disguised as Humans.

Could it be that what makes an Elf is being permanently in super-consciousness?

Could it be that this is the cause of their magic? Milton realizes that there is no material explanations for the long life of the Elves. Especially all the experiments proved that the Elves have the same genes as the Humans. But how do their bodies regenerates, then?

Milton also realizes that he knows one of the Humans: Professor Schwanz, the director of a laboratory close to his own, in the very same department of neurology, in the Tellutaar University! He often saw him, and even occasionally shared his table in the cafeteria. Probably several of the others are high scientists too, clothed as if they were simple workers or modest people.

«Yes it is me, replied Professor Schwanz. It is happy that you had your consciousness taking after completing your studies. Indeed, when this happens to people, they often feel that their studies are useless, and they drop them, alas. Fortunately, you are now a brilliant neurologist, and we need competent people like you, for our purpose in this group.

-Which purpose?

-Hem, at this point it is secret. We never mention it in the Nyidiath, only in the Dauriath. You know, when we do a parapsychology experiment, like the though of a subject trying to influence an object, them the though of anybody else can also influence the same object. And meddle with the result of the experiment. This is why parapsychology experiment nearby always give null result when hostile people know about them. If this is not enough to discredit the field, the results are criticized, for instance in Nyidipedia, or the scientists are calumniated, as it happened with my poor friend Bob who dared to speak openly.

«Since we cannot shield an experiment against adverse though, then the only solution at this point is to proceed in triple blind: the subject does not know, the experimenter does not know, and above all the public does not know anything about the experiment. This last point protects against any attempt to tamper the experiments, either intently of from mere pessimism. This is why our project is strictly confidential. This secrecy also protects us against hostile activities, or infiltration by crooks and cults. Of course, once our work complete, we shall offer the result to everybody. But we do not expect this before tens of years.

-In the Dauriath? But with my work, I do not have enough time to travel up there...

-Haha we can arrange that, some day. You would surely enjoy the visit. But for now, we have something much better. We have a whole virtual world where we can discuss in total freedom.

-In the Nyidiverse? But there is no privacy at all in the Nyidiverse! With all the gaping security holes, any government or big company can count the hairs on our bums!»

The Elves laugh, appreciating Milton’s colorful language as much as the Humans.

«Hahahaha! No, not in the Nyidiverse. I mean serious virtual worlds

«I mean, the Elven virtual world system of the Dauriath.

-Our system.

-The...?

-Yes OUR system, said one Elve. All the servers are in the Dauriath. For viewers in the Nyidiath, we have end to end encryption and all sort of safeties like changing the encryption method several times a week. Still, we shall not entrust our main Elven strategic activities to viewers in the Nyidiath, but for the present project this is safe enough.

-We cannot stay any longer in this room. The janitor is coming to close the premises. But remember: not a single word. If you are asked, you never heard anything past generalities and some toasts after the conference. I tell you how to connect to our virtual place, and see you up there!»

This looks just as in any association meeting, with chairs all around and drinks on a table. Professor Schwanz makes a discreet thanking gesture over MakTar’s chair, and it instantly becomes again a very ordinary chair, that he pulled with the others. Never before Milton could imagine this serious respectable university professor doing a magical gesture!

Well, he is not the one doing the magic, but still.

Later in his small flat, Milton is so overwhelmed that he cannot sleep before very late. So, not only he understood extraordinary things, but in more there is a whole community of scientists studying them! And yes it is related to parapsychology as he guessed. But it also is related to the Elves! He is extremely curious to see what their purpose or project is.

The virtual worlds of the elves

As soon as he gets up the next morning, Milton starts his computer. He already attended the Nyidiverse, for professional meetings or for experiments. But he uses the elven viewer instead of the standard one. It is fast and intuitive, yet powerful, explaining why many Humans prefer it for the Nyidiverse, not aware of its primary purpose.

Users of virtual worlds on Earth will enjoy to have a look on how the Elves do that. Behold!

Included in the technology transfers following the Horiathon Battle, the Elves had shared virtual reality tools, and they are still actively bringing better versions of them. This allowed Humans in the Nyidiath to have a virtual life. Unfortunately most used it just for fighting, parties, or porn. The Elves had provided the tools, the Humans had to find the purposes.

Yet, questioned in forums or in media interviews, the Elves regularly say that they «seldom» use virtual life.

So that, why to undertake the huge effort of designing such advanced tools? And adapting them to the Human laws? They certainly had an important motive.

By the time of this story, there is an increasing entanglement between the Dauriath and the Nyidiath, with Humans becoming Elves, Elves having Human friends or family, scientists working together, forums with hidden identities, etc. All this makes some things harder and harder to hide. So, around in 3930, 34 years after the Horiathon battle, a new name had started to circulate in the Internet forums on virtual life: the Estrellar, a huge and pervasive network of interconnected virtual worlds spanning the whole Dauriath. In there, the Elves brought the top of their culture. Actually mostly in the Arlit, the modern part of the Dauriath, but the Undar, the part of the traditional «fantazy» Elves, is slowly equipping itself with discreet but fast Internet connections powered by solar panels.

And any who had seen the Estrellar says that it is of an incredible beauty and refinement.

Many intellectuals or Internet buffs questioned the Elves as to why they hide their virtual worlds. The official reply is privacy: most Elf families use them to keep in touch together, when traveling. Or they are «scantily clothed» in their paradise gardens. Among Elves, this is not a problem, and anyway they have subtle clues as to where they can go, or not. Useless to say, even benevolent Humans would miss these clues, and enter uninvited in scenes not for them. Not to speak of children attempting to explore these worlds. Or porn people invading the Elven edens with their gross manners and despising language.

No.

The real reason actually, why they do not want random Humans in their elven places, has nothing to do with bodily nudity. Some call it «soul nudity»: manners and behaviors which look normal to most Humans, are totally ruining the vibes of the elven landscapes. Things like blathering or being totally off-vibe. This requirement is still incomprehensible for most Humans, and many would do very visible mistakes like wearing gray clothes, emitting opinions, analyzing what they see, or worse dragging ideologies, comparing to video games, hearing bad music, some even were seen wearing vampire or demon attires! What more gross, for an Elf in a wonderful landscape, than to see people who speak of war, of tennis, or marking their superiority or their «belonging»! And of course if the Elves try to explain that, the usual reply is «I express myself», thus blocking any communication.

Not only these behaviors are a sore in the view, but they are totally disruptive of the subtle non-verbal communication of the Elves, based on vibes and other delicate connivance. The Elves could put panels and warnings, as non-subtle clues understandable by anybody. But this is not a real solution: putting their non-verbal communication in words and signs would spoil their own enjoyment, all in subtle situations. They want to feel things, not to discuss of them. Some Elves try to herd disruptive Humans in educative landscapes, but to say frankly, most Elves still do not care much about the Humans, so that they just close their personal paradises to anything coming from the Nyidiath.

Now that the word spread, some Elves would slowly open dedicated virtual places to a few Humans, mostly the ones wanting to become Elves. Or selected artists and intellectuals, as witnesses. This is how some images of the Estrellar started to appear in Internet forums. Not in the media, as they shunned virtual life for forty years already, not even mentioning it. And it is much better that they ignore it, at least they do not associate virtual life with their bad politics and false philosophies.

But the ones who visited all agree: indeed, these scenes all are of an incredible beauty.

The virtual technology offered to the Nyidiath after the Horiathon Battle was in fact second grade, compared to the one already installed in the Dauriath. Good enough for the Human computers and connections by the time, much weaker than the elven ones. And anyway well enough for the predictable Human uses: antagonist games, parties, etc. But the difference is lowering, and, 34 years after the Horiathon Battle, Humans are able to build computers powerful enough for the best of virtual life. So why did the Elves shared so early a yet immature technology, unusable for its really intended purpose? The best guess is that they wanted to create a culture of virtual life, without waiting for good computers in the Nyidiath.

But above all, they wanted that the Humans understood that they need some basic rules in the virtual, and that they designed these rules themselves, without the Elves dictating them.

Indeed the beginning of the Nyidiath virtual life was chaotic, and for several reasons. The first was that Humans did closed virtual worlds, where it was not possible to port content from a world to another, and even not identities. In the beginning, this was not felt as an inconvenience, but after some abusive world closures, people realized it was a catastrophe ruining the virtual lives of all the users, comparable to a nuclear strike destroying a whole town, killing all its inhabitants and erasing all its records and History. The Elves knew that this had to happen, but they waited that Humans understood by themselves that some discipline and formal rules are needed, instead of allowing crooks and cranks to play with the lives of their users. Only when this was understood, the Elves could share the true solutions, and only to the ones understanding them. Such rules are not so much needed in the Dauriath, among Elves only, but the idea was to create a system where both Elves and Humans could live together. This was called the Nyidiverse, to differentiate it from the Estrellar itself, for the Elves only. But the first is the way for the Humans to enter the second, when they will be mature enough.

Milton thinks it would be dangerous to use the same identity as for his University meetings and work. So that he has to create a new one for the «project». Here is how he does.

One of the issues the above rules had to consider, is the number of abuses on the Internet and in virtual worlds, and even real crimes. So that web designers and Human lawyers had come with a very simple solution: a user has to register in a fiduciary company, colloquially referred as a «fide», checking and holding his real identity. From here, he can create as many virtual identities as he wants. Only the fiduciary company knows the link between his physical identity and his virtual identities. This protects people’s virtual freedom well enough, while still allowing for a motivated legal injunction to identify malevolent people acting in the virtual. This simple solution had allowed to conciliate freedom of expression and protection against Internet crimes, without making concessions on any of the two, and without creating a complex set of specific laws. To the point that this system is also more and more used in Internet forums too. Some Nyidiath countries even started using their own fides to safely identify their citizens in their administrative virtual worlds. But most were still resisting virtual life.

To access the Dauriath, Milton has to create his new identity in a Dauriath fide. Of course among Elves the legal cautions are not really needed, so that the Dauriath fiduciaries are mere repositories of identities, to access the numerous Dauriath worlds. But the visitors from the Nyidiath must first register in a special fide, called the nimar, uniquely dedicated to work with the Nyidiath. And this one has very strict controls. He already heard this name, as some bureau of the elven intelligence services. These blokes do not play, they are even more scary than the MakTar’s chair. This makes that handling Milton from the Nyidiverse to the Estrellar is a complex procedure, yet very transparent for him. No idea on how they could check him so fast, without he noticed anything: he gets the green light only one minute later.

The other primordial role of the fiduciary company is to offer users a personal vault for their inventory of virtual objects. Inventory which can be costly, or may need years of work to create. So that, instead of being accessible only from a given world, it is in the fiduciary company, and accessible from any virtual world. So this inventory is secure even in the case of a world closing without warning. And since it is legally the property of the user, the fiduciary company itself has to take proper care of it, even if it goes bankrupt. For this reason, the different fiduciaries had established a shared trust, a distributed network to back up each other’s content. The users can also get local backups of their own vault, or transfer it to another fiduciary.

A fun feature of the inventory vault is that it is a virtual world by itself, displaying all its content real size, organized in rooms and fields by categories, each with teleportals toward neighboring categories. On its creation, the vault already contains thousands of various free items, tidied up in rooms by categories. It already deserves an exploration by itself, and most users enjoy it. But when users have added thousands of their own objects, some manage to make of their vault a total mess. Well, not so, as the vault has a strange geometry: each room is an independent virtual scene on its own, so that you can enlarge it ad libidum, without having to push the other rooms.

So Milton has to transfer his content from his Nyidiath vault to a Dauriath vault. This starts nearby instantly with the most common items, like his body shapes and clothes. The remainder will take longer, in the background. Many items being already present in providers inventories, then just references are transferred, via the common trust, highly speeding up the process. The full transfer of copyable objects will be completed in the background.

Yet some of his items are refused by the Dauriath vault, let us see why.

The second step Milton has to go through is to select which guilds he would be in. When those guilds were introduced, people massively confused them with roleplay guilds. Indeed some are, but their primary purpose is legal: each person and each object is mandatorily part of one or several guilds. And any world, and even places in worlds, allows only persons and objects of a given set of guilds. Anybody is free to create any object, but they all are checked against the rules of each guild, to see where they can fit. The basic purpose of this is to automatically avoid entering objects or persons in a virtual place which does not want them. Of course, to make things simple, there is a very general guild called Gizmos, allowing for all common objects and activities. But there are more oriented guilds, for instance fantazy guilds. Fantazy worlds allow only for fantazy objects, so that it is not possible for instance to enter in a fantazy world wearing a modern suit or driving a car. If anybody tries this, intentionally or mistakenly, then the suit is replaced by a default fantazy costume (or by a preferred one the user has in his vault), the car is replaced by a horse, and so on. When coming back into a general region, the fantazy suit can stay, but any weapon, like a sword or a bow, is removed, being not labeled as Gizmos. This is very practical, allowing for a seamless navigation from worlds to worlds, without the hassle of changing outfit or forgetting to remove inappropriate objects.

The main purpose of guilds however is legal: to protect people, and especially children, monasteries, etc. from encountering adult-oriented content, or from inadvertently entering such places. Indeed, we can enter in adult worlds only if we are part of an adult guild, where only people checked of age by the fide can be members. This solved the old issue of access filtering, in an automatic way, without any possible obstruction or tampering. Even the computers have guilds, depending if they are at home, at work, etc. This was hailed as an universal solution, allowing for everybody to have a virtual life appropriate for everybody, including children. Yet by the time of this story, some were still fighting against virtual worlds, wanting to forbid them to all children, and even to all adults if they could. But with the guilds system they lost all pretexts to do so.

Of course there are a lot of specialized guilds, and anybody can create and manage his own, with all the kind of rules we can imagine. They act as automated protection for the style and purpose of each world. Their large number reflects all the diversity of purposes and styles in virtual life. And sometimes they coincide with roleplay guilds: for instance a world can use one guild per role, just as roleplay virtual worlds do.

Another intended purpose of guilds is for copyright holders. Indeed, they just have to create each their own guild, to control in which places their creations can be used, without having uncontrolled copies in each new world. Of course this is not a concern in the Estrellar, but the beginning of the Nyidiverse saw a lot of copyright theft and plagiarizing, especially with «open» systems duplicating objects uncontrollably, to the point of seriously hampering the uses of virtual life. Indeed no real creator, nor commercial neither free, likes to work just for unknown blokes calling theirs his creations.

Milton is proposed some other common guilds, for instance Meralia, named after an ancient goddess of love, and providing with vanilla adult life. He declines this one, but he knows that he can change his mind at any moment. Or even he can create a different adult-oriented character, without anybody being able to trace it to his main virtual character neither to his physical persona. Also, skins in the Gizmo generic guild include underwear, so that we cannot appear naked by accident. But when we buy one, we also get the complete version in adult guilds like Meralia. This way, the skin is changed automatically between clothed or naked, depending on which kind of world we enter in. This system works well, and it allows for children to have virtual lives in the generic worlds, without the risk of unexpected encounters or landing in inappropriate places. Adults also appreciate that they cannot appear naked by accident. Being an adult does not make sex beasts of all of us, did you know?

Out of curiosity, Milton check the other adult guilds. To his surprise, even the elvish Estrellar has some rather spicy stuff! Nowhere else can we see better how the Elven society is a free society. But they leave no illusion: the presentation pages offer fantastically beautiful picture. This is their world, and they make no concessions on the essential.

When he had first opened his personal vault in the Nyidiath fide, Milton had found it already populated with all sorts of good quality bodies and clothes, furniture, plants, houses, vehicles, etc. for a great start in his virtual life. But there are no weapons in the generic Gizmos guild. This sets a more peaceful, friendly and collaborative mood in the Gizmos worlds. But it is not a total ban on weapons: gamers and professionals using weapons have their own dedicated guilds, which are allowed in their places.

He was told by his new friends of Sanduak to join a group called «Gegy». This is a private group, not listed in the public directories. So that he has to provide with a code. But this group is in the Dauriath, in the famous Estrellar!

In the beginning, groups existed only in one virtual world. They now are internet forums, entangled with one or several virtual worlds, and often with one or more specific guilds. The Internet group defines rules for its members, in one or several virtual world. With instant teleportation from a world to another, this makes communities independent of any world, and living in several if needed. So people always are connected instantly, even in the case where one world is offline. For instance a group with members in several worlds can join for an event in one of these worlds, or people can visit each other instantly. This allows for much larger and much more active communities, instead of having scattered small groups in separated non-communicating worlds, not communicating with each other.

All this seems complicated, but it is in fact simple to set, with just a series of check boxes to reply. People create one or several characters, and select the different options in a process which does not take more than some minutes, while the virtual viewer is downloading and installing itself in the background, checking the computer and adapting to its architecture.

Milton had chosen the classical human-computer interface: sitting in front of a screen, with a mouse and a keyboard on the desk top. But he knows there are more immersive solutions, like a cabinet surrounded by screens. This allows to stand, to walk, and even to lay! In this last case, the whole cabinet rotates to the horizontal, with still the keyboard at hand, on the chest. Milton realizes that this must be for horizontal activities. But some people go as far as actually sleeping in their cabinet, that they installed in their bedroom in the place of their bed. This makes them seamlessly pass from dream to virtual!

He contemplates that, but he does not buy a cabinet. Anyway, it is still very expensive, due to the several large curved screens, each with a GPU. Milton nevertheless installed two lateral screens on his desk top, which already offer a fantastic effect. Each screen, including the central one, has its own graphic processor, receiving the scene description from the main computer. They even have a gyroscope, like a cellphone, so that you can move them, and the view adjusts instantly. Milton had seen virtual driving lessons perfectly mimicking a car, with main screens surrounding the car and smaller ones for the rear-view mirrors. Other possibilities are a stick, or a game controller. Many people use a stick for driving vehicles or flying aircrafts, and Milton already has one. He prefers to have the keyboard at hand, but he can pull the stick when needed. Some days ago he saw in a shop a combination of a keyboard and two sticks, the second being used as a mouse (this taking less place than the classical mouse pad)

He already has a proportional pedalboard for walking, turning, and well, flying. Since they are proportional, he quickly found out how to turn smoothly, simply by repelling one side a bit more, while walking. To fly, he has to give a great push with both feet, just as we do when we dream that we fly. This device even allows to somewhat dance, with the feet giving the rhythm, and the computer improvising movements on it. Milton prefers the feet controls to the stick, less accurate but leaving his hands free.

When he first used it, he found the pedalboard a bit tedious, until a popup appeared on his screen telling him that not everybody uses it in the same way, and he had to find his own setting: the hinge at his toes and the heels pushing on the pedals. He set the force a bit stronger than the factory setting, but not athletic. Indeed, the pedalboard had found an unforeseen use: long virtual sport walks, with the pedalboard set to make work the soleus muscle, the best option to lose weight. So city-dwelling people can spend hours walking with a real effort, while chatting, working or meditating in fantastic landscapes.

Entering the world still entails a lot of textures downloading. But the viewer does not freeze for this reason, still allowing to see shapes, to communicate, or to use the interface, while the scene is being created in the background. Better, the texture download delay had been mitigated in several ways.

The first is to start the download with a low definition version, allowing to see an understandable scene as soon as possible. Far away textures remain in a lower definition.

The second solution is meta-textures, made of small elements. Since a lot of elements repeat, like leaves, bricks, etc. a neural network reconstitutes a seamless image from incompatible elements. For instance we can have a long brick wall, without the visible repeat patterns of classical textures, yet with less download. This system uses a repeatable pseudo-random generator, so that to give the same result for everybody. When designing a scene, the creator tries different seeds for the random generators. Once he is satisfied, the seed value is stored with the object, and used each time it is seen. A simpler and more popular way however is to have two textures on the same face, with different repeat patterns, for instance a simple brick texture overlaid by a larger patina texture.

At last, the general bandwidth of the Internet is increasing, allowing for more and more complex and realistic landscapes. The famous LOD levels also are used while downloading a scene, or with low power computers like laptops.

Due to the problem of «soul nudity» seen above, the generic Gizmos guild is not allowed in the Dauriath, but a different guild called Lysaer. Happily, the two have most of their content in common, even the managers work together. This is why some of Milton’s items were refused: he cannot escape wearing Elf-friendly clothes, without gray or black!

We spoke a lot, to describe a process lasting some minutes for the first time, and only seconds after. So that Milton now enters the Estrellar!

Entering in the Estrellar

First, the general Dauriath welcome area looks like a rainbow mist. But quickly it takes shape, to appear in all its exquisite details and intricate sculptures. And it is true that it is beautiful... so much that we lack superlatives! It literally jumps off the screen! Imagine an intricately sculpted cathedral, with an octagonal plan, multiple arches and columns on two levels, but entirely made of colored glass instead of stone. A cathedral all in stained glass! Pillars and vaults look like assembled from molten drops of glass of various hues, arranged in rainbows or splashes of vivid colors on a luminous background. Through the translucent pastel walls, he gets a hint of a wonderful greenery landscape, adding depth to the exquisite vibe.

And there are a lot of people here, standing around or sitting on armchairs disposed in the alcoves between the pillars. Each alcove has a statue on the second level, while the floor level is arranged as meeting places. Milton expected to find only one or two Humans, but this places serves the whole Nyidiath, so that, in more of the Shartan continent, there are black people from the south continent Italezar, and others mate skin people from the Nolan and the Hortan, the two continents opposite to the previous. For the first time maybe, he feels the whole Nyidiath world as a single entity, instead of separate countries!

The magic of the Elves starts as soon as the entrance...

Clothing are wonderful too. Of course magnificent floating pastel hued elvish attires, with frills and ribbons! Even Human must wear colored clothes in the Dauriath, but they can wear more discreet ones. Milton had been advised to avoid wearing low vibes colors, but not necessarily to cloth like an Elf. To be frank, he is not ready to do so! The Lysaer guild check system removed his gray pullover, to replace it with a slightly muted blue one of the same making (actually it just changed the texture). Ooof, he is still Human after all, he thought with some humor. Not forced to wear vividly colored floating robes or long blonde hair! The message with the change of pullover is that this place is open to the «Human guests» guild. But only few of the Dauriath places do so. Well, apparently the AI animating the guild system has some humor, suggesting him to wear an ostentatious waist-long shiny pink wig with large mauve curls and multicolored flowers! «I am not gay» replies Milton, amused. To what the AI comments in the same tone: «We are inclusive, in the Dauriath, and we even allow for straight Elves too». Yes, elvish AI pull jokes, on Earth ChatGPT already does too, get used to that.

This humor gives, more even than beauty, a feeling of entering a friendly place full of Human warmth, where we are welcome whoever we are. Milton takes some time to admire all the attires, wonderful elven, discreet Humans, multicolored ponchos from the Italezar. Far from contrasting, they blend in an unique mood, on the fantastic background of intricately chiseled colored glass.

Then he realizes that he is standing like a perfect noob in the very middle of this place, and two other arrivals are already piled up on his head (He is astonished that the Elves did not fixed this little problem. But he thinks, maybe they did not wanted to, finding the sight funny, or even pulling bets on how many people can stand like that, each on the head of the previous). And two very long-haired and very flowery-dressed greeters are starting to speak to him. He moves, making the pile on his head to fall. To the amused greeters, he tries to utter:

«I am, err, invited to a private group.

-Ah, yes. Welcome in the Estrellar, the virtual paradise of the Elves. You should be given a landmark or a group invite. If ever you need any help, we are Nyidi-Gateway 3, you have a landmark in your admin folder, or to any of the other landing points.

-Thanks. For now I just want to join their place. I already know how to do»

The two greeters bow at him, and go to other new arrivals. Some needs much more time, when their suits and bodies must be tailored. There are privacy booths for that, just as in shops. Save that here we get body parts!! How strange is virtual life, where we can change face, eyes, mouth, hair, breasts, and so on.

Milton could teleport right away to his friend’s place. But he wants to explore a bit this wonderful building. The walls have two levels of pillars and arches, separated with what appears as a gallery. The ceiling is in the shape of a sugar loaf, with ribs and a kind of node at the very top. All the arcs have serrations and patterns all along, and they join in a central flower. The proportions are elegant, giving a feeling of a light building, like immaterial. The walls are entirely of half transparent glass, luminous, colorful and intensely vibrating like a stained glass. Not entirely transparent, though: the glass contains irregular colored mist patches, with what looks like gems, flecks of gold or crumpled flower petals. The later even move slowly, as if floating in some sort of syrup!

And this is only one of the greeting points, Milton has no idea on how the others look like. Sure the Elves want a full display of their art in these showcase points.

The exit from the glass cathedral opens in the luminous landscape around. And again it is a shock with such a wonderful beauty! Imagine a hummocky meadow dotted with trees, bushes, flower groups. But everything is incredibly neat, with luminous and pure colors, intensely vibrating, so that it seems lively, powerful. Every leave, every petal, is fresh as when getting out of the bud. Nothing is old or wilt. There are no paths, but walk is easy and he wades chest-high in grasses without leaving a trail of crushed vegetation. This incredible natural beauty never is spoiled, and even not withering with time. Eternal flowers, forever buzzing insects or singing birds, he can even see them fluttering around. Yet despite this huge number of details, the powerful Estrellar’s viewer still allows for a fluid walk and smooth movements.

As Milton advances further, he finds more diversity, meeting places, ponds, ceremonial trees, fantastic flower patches, impossible mushrooms, giant luminous crystals, as if thousands artists all with different tastes had brought each their contribution to this apparently useless landscape. It seems to extend indefinitely, while bird songs reverberate in the canopy, changed in strange cosmic sounds. The ground is entirely a carped of varied moss, not showing paths. But spaces between bushes make passages, leading him still further, with always a clearing or a new sound calling, or strange colorful objects of unknown nature or purpose. Or small rocky hills with each different flowers, stairs, terraces and small caves. The style changes a bit, with huge gems planted in the grass, or curvy glass sculptures, symbols-bearing posts, statues of improbable deities suddenly emerging from behind a bush. He even finds a... crashed war plane, covered in ivy and flowers. Curiously this wreck does not seem out of place, so much the whole landscape is odd and creative!! He will be explained later that about ten thousands took part in the creation of this seemingly useless beauty, as a display for the new comers. Especially the unexpected crashed plane is a F33 made by an ancient Human pilot who had been shot down in the Dauriath, as a Historical testimony.

Then Milton emerges in a large meadow with a kremlin-like fairy castle all in white stone and colorfully-painted roofs, sitting in the entrance of a valley between small mountains. It is Nyidi-Gateway 4! How many are there? How large is this landscape? Actually this virtual scene is not that big, only some kilometers, but looped on itself, like the surface of a sphere, so that walking straight in any direction we return to our departure point. But walking randomly makes it feel much bigger.

Going to actually inhabited places needs teleportation, and well, invitation. The «soul nudity» problem. He is not yet in the Estrellar proper, only in the gateway from the Nyidiath.

The Estrellar itself is indeed much bigger, with many simulators: navigating there needs teleportations, and thus a control by the guilds system. He checks that he is not in the Lysaer guild proper, but in a subset called G-Lysaer, for Human guests. It shows nearby everything of the Lysaer, plants, flowers, etc. while not allowing access to fully Lysaer places. But Milton also has a special guild called Gegy, from his friends in Sanduak. Not much inventory here, this guild mostly serves as a private access control, for a short list of invited persons, maybe two hundred. Here he has to go. He quickly finds the good landmark in the vault where he is given access.

An important point of both the Nyidiverse and the Estrellar is that not everything is on a single server (like Second Life on Earth). Most users have their own endeavor, and they host themselves their own project. This allows for much more freedom than a single server and a single operator: each world has its own rules and its own responsibilities. But we can teleport instantly from anyone to any other, thanks to the strict interoperability of all the software elements.

This is also possible thanks to the fiduciary and vault system: each time we teleport, we bring our identity, appearance and personal inventory, as they all are hosted in a single place.

The Gegy

When Milton clicks on the landmark, instantly the previous landscape disappears, but not the menus of the viewer. He appreciates this feature of the Elven viewer, allowing to continue his activities or discussions, instead of remaining locked out for minutes if the teleport fails. But he waits only some seconds, before seeing gray shapes appearing, then taking colors and details. There is an entirely different batch of textures to download, and it takes about a minute to complete, due to Milton’s physical position in the Nyidiath. But he can start immediately to walk and interact with people, while his viewer is working on textures. A well comfortable detail, there is a red progress bar for the shapes, a yellow one for the textures and a blue one for the connections.

The new place sits on top of a grassy knoll, surrounded with a vast expense of forested hills. Further snow-capped mountains shine. Probably they are a «surround», that is just a texture on vertical surfaces, still giving a strikingly realistic landscape. But we know that it is a metatexture, as some patches take more time to load. A metatexture is made of smaller elements arranged by a deterministic pseudo-random generator. The server then just sends a single «seed» number, to produce the same landscape into all the viewers. Just changing this seed makes a unique and totally different arrangement of mountains. This makes for a breathtaking detailed view, emanating an intense sensation of freedom and vastness. A single texture would only offer blurred details instead.

Closer by, on rolling hills, the forests has trees of many different shapes and shades of green, some more blue, some more yellow, as of a virgin forest. This very diversity makes it lively and really beautiful!

On top of the knoll, a small meadow surrounds the building of the Gegy, strewn with flower patches. These have simple shapes: it is a working place and the viewer needs to respond fast. Yet these flowers still are lovely, dominated by giant pink daisies, with all sort of smaller ones all in pastel hues. Paths for peritateticians lead from the building to the forest, where we guess are number of benches, arbors and gazebos. The building itself is a flat dome, white with bluish shadows and smooth surface. Numerous round windows dot the roof at random, all of pure colors instead of dark. On the top, a spire bears a symbol: a sphere in a gold-like metal with four arms in X, rotating slowly, All around the dome is a white awning, still from the same material, interrupted by six small arches for the doors. This construction is not so big, maybe a meeting hall for fifty persons at best. But Milton will learn later that there is a bigger hall under, and several other underground levels. From there, tunnels lead to many working lounges on the slopes around the hill. You may not expect that, but linking houses with tunnels is a traditions in many elven places, dating back the times where the Elves were relegated in the highest mountains of the Nyidiath, with harsh winters.

The inside has a lot of sofas and armchairs, arranged seemingly at random. Actually they can be moved for the needs of the discussions. It is nice, with a lot of warmly colored fabrics and decorations, making the place intimate and comfy. Each roof window lightens the place with a different color, and the whole is very pretty, like the previous cathedral, just simpler and more intimate. In more of the six doors leading outside, are several large bays, and a number of teleportals opening on a shimmering colored haze.

Actual windows looking vividly colored from outside while letting in a lot of light inside seem physically impossible. But it works with metamaterials, intensely reflecting one color, while allowing in all the others.

There presently are three persons here, one Elf, one Elve, and one Human. They all are clothed in a simple way, with trousers and T-shirts, as Elves do when they work. He knows none of them, but they heard about him, and they are not astonished of seeing him arriving.

«Hello, lady and sirs.

-Hello Mil, please feel comfy here, no sirs or ladies in the Dauriath, ha ha! I am Shanti Woombaa Tellutaar, so that we are from the same town, just different epochs. We expected you.

-Yes I was invited by the association, from a meeting in Sanduak.

-We attended this meeting in video, together with several other ancient Elves. Under the look of a casual small association meeting, it was in fact a strict recruitment process. Often this yields nobody, but in your case we felt that you were ready, and we told our friends to invite you in the smaller room. That you avoided to sit on MakTar confirmed that you are sensitive to spiritual stakes, ha ha ha!

-Ah, the MakTar chair... I must admit it befuddled me, ha ha!

-Its operation is however quite simple: a dis-incarnated Elf is «sitting» on it, sending you the feeling of a presence. Up to you to be sensitive to that... And not being absentminded when it happens. Actually you get what scientists call an «instant of superconsciousness» just as when you are warned of a danger.

-And if somebody sits on the chair anyway, what happens?

-Nothing. We set another chair, that’s all. Sometimes the dis-incarnated Elf is unhappy, and he pulls some prank on the undue sitter. Later he tells us, so that we have a laugh. I remember once, a real jerk entered our meeting uninvited and sat unceremoniously there. He started uttering unfair criticism, but less than a minute later, he felt a powerful urge to go to the toilet. I hope he arrived there in time, but since he never tried again to force enter our meetings.

-Blimey, isn't that a bit wild, this method?

-Not as much as rocks flying in their face. We have given up this kind of violent methods, but in front of such stupid and vulgar people, we have to get down to their level to be understood, ha ha ha!

-In any case none ever complained, ha ha ha ha!»

Milton takes a breath. Facing those welcoming but silent smiles, he has to ask:

«So, what all of this is about? Epistemology, the Great Marvel? This group?

There was a silence, then Shanti Woombaa started to explain:

«Oh this is a bit complicated, about very simple things that we Elves know from millennia, from the time of Shelenaë. It is about what differentiates Elves from Humans, what is magic, and how to kindle it, in the inner peace and non-ego. We do all this from the beginning, but naively, instinctively. It works very well like that, and even better when we live in simplicity.

«In ancient times Humans were also simple. If they wanted to become Elves, they could do so in some years with the slow path, or in some days with the fast path. But modern times made this much more difficult, with all the ideologies, pride and ego hardening. Formerly we just needed to explain the truth once to the candidate Elves. Today, people are so deeply infatuated with so many opinions that cleansing only one can take months... just to discover yet another harder ingrained layer under. So many ideological viruses and vicious neurosis can disrupt the transformation process, that we do not propose the fast path anymore, to protect our youngsters from hard suffering and even death. We took this decision forced by serious recent cases with Human candidates suddenly becoming ideological, and we had to repatriate their partners urgently to the Dauriath before it was too late. Already when I lived in Tellutaar just before the Exodus, a saw a naive young Elve of the mountains barely avoiding death, just because her too scrupulous Human was not believing his luck. This is the awful cost of Human’s materialism and competition, of their «freedom of opinions» and «accepting oneself as we are». These times, many say out of fashion that they want to become Elves, but they scamper off when they realize that they have to relinquish all their junk of prejudices and ideologies.

«This is why we are studying the process scientifically, to be still able to help them despite the incredible difficulties they create.

«But there is more.

«Magic.

«This terrible magic, that the modern Human science frantically refuses, to the point of denying its very existence. Yet we see it operating every day. This enormous contradiction points at a subtle but fundamental flaw in modern science. Indeed, modern science is very good at observing physical phenomena. But it totally misses the point when their own spirit intervenes: just denying magic makes it imperceptible in their experiments, so that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they see there the «proof» that magic does not exist!

«for this reason, we had to enter in this science, find and locate the flaw, and rebuild a more complete science. This is mostly what we are doing in the Gegy, and in some other places. And the reason why we are a secret group: publishing too early would create a lot of muddling, hostility, «alternative theories» and other forms of noxious noise. This would be very dangerous for the general public, but it can also harden many opinions among scientists themselves. So we need to keep our work secret, until we have a full theory, indisputable results, and we are influential enough to escape repression. We are on a good track, but still tens of years from this target.

«We invite Humans like you, because we must work with the Humans. As it is them who cause the problems, they also hold the solutions. They will all have to become Elves, anyway, because otherwise the Great Marvel cannot happen.

«So this is what we are coming with:

«First point, our basic metaphysical tenet is that material elements and immaterial consciousness elements are on the same level of reality. None of the two is «more real» neither «more existing» than the other.

This equality makes possible that they interact together, very naturally without any other cause or element. Without any ad-hoc exterior entities neither any unprovable metaphysics. This interaction of consciousness with matter is what we call magic.

«The only problem is that our consciousnesses flatly follows the brain activity. This is what we call the ego, the neuronal ego precisely. It is a much deeper and much more subtle issue than simple egocentricity, because we are not aware of it, we are deluded into believing that mere electrical impulses in our brain are «us» or «our will». This is ultimately what at every second prevents magic to happen, since the brain is a material object with no access to consciousness stakes. It just lures consciousness in believing to be the brain, and thus it prevents it from really interacting with matter. But if you remove the ego and dwell in mind emptiness, then things start to happen immediately.

-Yes, but metaphysical tenets cannot be proved?

-They cannot», makes Professor Schwanz who just appeared in the middle of the room, as it is usual to do in virtual worlds when we teleport in, or when we connect. «But actually, we can test the physical result. This can prove indirectly any metaphysics at the origin of the laws of physics.

-Hello Professor, says everybody.

-Oh I see Shanti is already explaining. She is much better than me for concise presentations, ha ha! She should take my place in the University! I have some things to be busy at, anyway, so just ignore me for the moment, please» and he disappears in one of the teleportals in the surrounding wall.

Milton could hardly recognize the usually dignified and black-suited Professor Schwanz, in this young long-haired ephebe wearing a light violet trouser and short shirt of the same color. But hey this is the Estrellar, there is no way to be «normal» here, ha ha!

Shanti resumes her explanations:

«Our second axis of research is General Epistemology. You know that epistemology is a method to discover reality. Science method is one such method, and it proved extremely efficient in physics and related domains. However, in the Nyidiath, atheistic governments and capitalist companies fund only material science. They even developed a dogma on the impossibility of observing consciousness. Which is quite funny, since we can observe our own consciousness at every second.

«However magic is a thorn in their feet, and this is why they take so much effort into denying it, like Nyidipedia does. Or even defaming people who know better, like Professor Schwanz’s friend, that we nicknamed Bob. We tried to warn him, but too late, he had already spoken too much. Professor Schwanz could not help him either, or he would be discovered in turn. Happily there was no Gegy documents in his computer, so that his tormentors guessed nothing.

-Wow, says Milton, I must really be careful not to leave any traces on my computer either.

-Do not worry, says the other Elf, called Malmö: our group is in a mode where all our conversations and virtual history are stored in the Gegy server, so that even if the Nyidiath police searches in your computer, they will find nothing. This is one of the safety features designed from the very first virtual viewers delivered in the Nyidiath. But you are right, do not keep notes or other info in the Nyidiath. Do not even mention General Epistemology and the Gegy. You can store your texts safely here, your Gegy inventory has a documentation section, and we have a discussion group with shared document editors in the Dauriath. Personally I have a diary of my impressions here, but only in my Gegy inventory. We also have our own guild and our own vault. Small but enough. And well, secured. And not listed in any directory.

-You do not risk to have the Nyidiath police in your computer!

-I do. I live in the Nyidiath, incognito. People do not know that I am an Elf.» Milton nods. Maybe Malmö works in one of these mysterious organizations which silently defend the interests of elvenhood in the Nyidiath. Better not to ask, he will say no more anyway.

«Our third point, continues Shanti, is the Logical Self-Generation Theory. That seems a great word, for something very simple. For instance a chess play is a logical self-generation process: each move is a consequence of the previous, and the cause of the next ones. Some Nyidiath scientists are starting to speak of Causal Sets Theory, but we have an indisputable twenty years antecedence.

«Each step of the self-generation process, or causal process, is called a nib, where causes gather, and consequences diverge from. This is the meaning of this X symbol, on top of our building, also used in Relativity: past is under, and future is above. But we rather think that causes are converging under, in an inflection point of reality, where consequences emerge above, as a new reality. Then to our mind, the causes appear as the past, and the consequences as the future.

«In the physical world, the nib is the quantum interaction. From here, the Logical Self-Generation Theory explains very well all the bizarre features of Quantum Physics, like non-locality, entanglement, and so on.

«The interesting point is that consciousness also has its nibs, and...

-Consciousness! Exclaims Milton. I always wondered what it is, of what it is made of...

-Do you know what electricity is made of? Made the third person, Roger, the Human.

-Err, no. It is just electricity. But...

-No, nobody know what electricity is «made of», or why it exists and how it appears each time we summon it. Does this prevent us from building electric machines and electronic devices?

-No, but...

-For consciousness, it is the same. We do not need to know of what it is «made of». Same for physics: there is no underlying cause for the fields or whatever we observe. Nothing more than the logical self-generation process, the chaining of causes and effects.»

Shanti continues: «The point of the Logical Self-Generation Theory is that the chaining of nibs, or quantum interactions, is enough to define reality, without the need for any underlying structure of cause. This is the NewTell interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Note of the Author: the Copenhagen interpretation, which in the Nyidiath was first assessed in the University of Physics of Tellutaar). This interpretation also applies to consciousness. Save that, instead of atoms and particles, the nibs of consciousness are elements of the consciousness experience: ideas, emotions, sensations, images, sounds, etc. Consciousness is just that: a stream, a chaining of elements, each being the cause of the next. This chaining does not need to me «made of» something. This is the definitive end of materialism, demolished by physics itself.

-Indeed, and it is even funny to check, comments Malmö: when we meditate on mind emptiness, we clearly see thoughts as flashes happening in random succession, with empty moments in between.

-And magic, asks Milton. It seems linked to consciousness. How it enters the equation?

-Simple, if we consider our first tenet: there is no hierarchy between a matter nib and a consciousness nib. This is how consciousness and matter can interact, since none of the two is «more existing» than the other. So that, sometimes, a nib happens which has causes in both domains, or consequences in both. The result is a magical moment, where matter bends to a consciousness stake

«The important point, though, and the reason why we do not see magic at every street corner, is that magical moments can only happen in mind emptiness, when consciousness is free, no more clinging at the impulses of the brain. It is impossible in the neural ego state where consciousness is totally focused on the sole activity of the brain. Hence the inability of scientists (and of most people) to willingly produce the least bit of magic.

«This is how we explain matter, consciousness and magic, all in a very simple common frame.»

Professor Schwanz suddenly emerges out of one of the teleporters around the room. Milton is so flabbergasted by all these explanations that he asks:

«Ah, professor, all this is fantastic, why don’t we speak of it in the Human’s world??

-Haha, all these theories are actually visible on the Nyidiath Internet, since the Horiathon Battle. Yet it is as unknown to the Human scientists as if we never spoke of it. Surprising, isn’t it?

-Really? How come?

-Yes, well before I was invited to the Gegy, I noticed a page presenting all this. I was still a general school student, and I had a homework involving epistemology. It was the early times of Internet, and typing the keyword «Epistemology» led me to a short list of 25 sites, from the great ancient philosophers in the antic Marshizaths time, to the foundation of modern science in the Enlightened Century before the Revolution. This page was among the 25. I was surprised by it, and I must say I dismissed it, from its naive tone and some serious errors in physics.

«But later on, when I joined the Gegy, I found that the page was still here, still maintained by its creator, with a more mature tone, and the errors corrected. Actually it is this page that the Elves had decided to use as a basis for the theories Shanti explained you. They did not invented this stuff.

-So that the creator is part of the Gegy, now?

-Curiously, not. We never contacted him.

-Oh, why?

-Several reasons. First, since he is publicly visible, he could attract inquiries, even torture, this can still happen today. If he speaks, he would compromise our work. But we also want to keep his thinking pristine, without trying to orient him. This is a common method in Elven science, even the Gegy is not the only one, there are several other teams working after different sets of hypothesis.

-So he thinks he is alone?

-Not really. Several Elves help him in other ways, in his personal life, so that he can continue his work.

-And the Human governments and Universities do not work with him?

-No. Materialistic science would outright reject his work anyway. But actually they do even not know of him.

-How? If his page is public, somebody must have noticed it, at some time? And spread the word?

-In theory, yes. But when I tried to find it again, I could not. The Nyidiath search engines do not give it.

-Censored?

-It is more subtle than a plain interdiction: when we search with his author name, they give the page. But no other search leads to it. Instead, today, a search on «epistemology» leads to hundreds of dubious media articles speaking of epistemology without knowing what it is. Even legit pages (about 40 today) are now drowned in this sludge.

-That is odd!

-That is a very clever censoring method, called indexation by notoriety. Sites are ranked by so-called «popularity», that is by number of «votes». People think it is democratic, but in fact it hides one of the most retort manipulation methods. Since only the «most popular» results are shown, the others remains hidden, and they never receive votes, whatever value they have. So that already «popular» site gets more and more votes, and the others less ans less. It is the self-fulfilling prophecy in its finest. The media just have to prim the system, by giving some first votes to the sites they want to promote, or to speak of them in hundreds of pages of media blather. This is enough to place their pages in the first positions, while relegating the relevant content to the 500^th position in the search results.

«Add to this Nyidipedia who never speak of this page: when we tried to add it, they rejected it as «personal philosophy». We even tried to add pages presenting the work of well known philosophers, under fake names. Nyidipedia all rejected them as «personal philosophy» or «unsourced». They even rejected a copy-paste of one of their own pages!

«This is the reason why the Elves have created their own web encyclopedia, the Margom, composed and checked by the relevant specialists, instead of any wanton ignorant. They also have their own search engine, initially based on key words and relevance. Today it is an Artificial Intelligence, the Sirdar, to which we ask questions. It replies with short explanations, and links to the Margon sources for checking and details. The Elves allowed for large parts of these to be accessible from the Nyidiath, but few Humans use them.

«In the Tellutaar University, we have our «official viewer», in order to «protect from phishing». But this de facto excludes the elve’s robot. We are of course not allowed to quote the amateurish and uncontrolled Nyidipedia in science studies. But the rule says «no crowd sourcing sites», which excludes the Margom too, despite it only has selected competent contributors. Since it is decentralized, unlike Nyidipedia, we can still catch the individual sites as valid primary sources. But the general index is not accessible, we have to consult it from our personal cellphones and manually copy the URLs.»

We understand that this evening, Milton’s head is buzzing with all what he heard, and he has trouble falling asleep!

The University and consciousness

In his University lessons, Milton is still teaching neurology. For a moment he feels much less enthusiast about this. But in the laboratory, he sometimes meets Professor Schwanz. He was briefed on how to behave with him, in order not to attract attention: deference to an older colleague, no eye contact, no low voice, nothing suggesting any connivance. Yet the professor, feeling his trouble, encourages him into teaching neurology, which has so many medical uses, «even if it does not address the question of the soul». That is skillful, looking like a random joke among colleagues, yet replying exactly his doubts. Just as he needed.

In the laboratory, Milton has not yet his own project. But his expertise is often requested here and then, to analyze images, or to double-check results. Presently he has in hands micrographs of brain tissue, showing endless layers of neurons, connected by a seemingly random disheveled network of billions of axons and dendrites. All the neurologists know that this tangle will remain indecipherable for decades, if not forever. So they all hope that it is still hiding the ultimate secret: how electrical nerve impulses become sensations, sounds, images, ideas, emotions. Thin hope, as any new discovery on these circuits point only at data processing. This make most neurologists to become more pessimist and materialist.

Yet finding the secret of consciousness is what Milton hoped for, when engaging in neurology studies. But Shanti Woombaa’s words are still in his ears: if consciousness is «something else», there simply is no secret in the brain networks, just a fantastic machine preparing our experiences and thoughts, while not experiencing them itself. A machine which often fails, this is why his work is needed. Presently some of the micrographs show subtle shape defects in one of the layers of neurons, that he mentions to the project leader. The later confirms that these patients had a specific sensory trouble. But Milton was the only one able to see this! Other colleagues did not. This precious observation points at a possible cure for tens of thousands of disabled sufferers. Just this single find, is worth all the trouble and effort he invested into learning neurology. He avoids to publicly boast about this success, but he now feels the pride and self-confidence. And a heap of more micrographs landing on his desk for his expert eye, ha ha ha!

Looking in his archives on his University computer, he examines again his own micrographs of the ear circuits, from his graduation work. What he found was that a specific row of neurons are responsible for responding to sounds of varied frequencies. These neurons are aligned like the tubes of an organ, or the strings of a piano, each responding to a given frequency, in the order. Of course these neurons are exactly like all the other neurons around, so that nothing tells this row precisely. The only thing making them neurons of audition is the complex bundle of axons arriving on them, from the ear. That was an interesting discovery, which earned him his Phd and congratulations from the elder neurologists.

Yet a question had remained unanswered: what is allowing these neurons to arise different sensations, each a note, while they all are identical? Milton is forced to admit, that there is a bijective relationship between the neurons and the sensations they arise. In pure neurology, this does not make sense: either the neurons are different, or there are other circuits assigning them each a given sensation. Which does not solve the problem, just rejecting it further.

But that consciousness is a different realm explains everything quite simply. The consciousness realm is capable of all the sensations, all the notes in the case of audition. And it is the consciousness which decides what it feels when a given neuron is activated. This suddenly looks so simple! No need for subtle differences between neurons (Some pretend it is quantum states) neither for mysterious circuits creating the sensations.

Yet in the cafeteria, where they can joke on fringe theories, he casually mentions a bijective relationship between neurons and sensations. They all laugh. Some frankly, some more subtly. One pontificates that «Bijections are in mathematics, not in neurology» Such a stupid remark, and the following snigger, ends up disillusioning Milton on his colleagues. As good as neurologists can be in medicine, they are not better at explaining consciousness than peasants or street sweepers. In any case, none of his colleagues is ready for the new paradigm.

Still the cafeteria cook, who is also the trade union guy, has fun saying that the relationship between work load and salaries is not bijective. At least this one understands this word! For the others, they will have to look on the Internet.

An intrusive family

The next Sunday, Milton can take some rest. He uses to have a walk on the beach front or along the marina. He avoids computers, as he feels an urge to further explore the Gegy and the Elven virtual worlds! Better to be in the physical world by this beautiful sunny day. But he cannot avoid his mind going on the secret Elven science, and he even tries to do some magic, without success of course. However this makes him suddenly realize that the noise of cars and conversation hampers his concentration! Of course, people who never think are not bothered by these distractions. But as soon as he tries to focus on his inner mind, noises suddenly become intrusive, like gesticulating clowns competing to catch his attention. He heard of this phenomenon in his readings, but as everybody confronted for the first time, he is taken by surprise.

Happily he also knows the solution: not to attach importance to these noises. He tries a bit, with some success... just to realize that he has his family just in front of him! Of course they immediately mock his «distraction»

«Mother: Oh why are you so distraught? You go too much on the Internet, I think!

-Sister: You were not in the tennis tournament yesterday? I am in the quarter-finals! You should come support me playing, at least!

-Other sister: Yes, when our family is winning, you should be here! Annette was, and she said she missed you!

-Father: Some friends told me that you were seen with Elves. This is a shame, what Annette will think of that?»

This one startles Milton: how his father could know, about the Sanduak conference? Are they spying at him from far away? Tailing by detectives? A spyware in his cellphone? He is about to reply something harsh, to nab his father once and for all. But he suddenly becomes aware that his father knows nothing, and his statement is a bluff: if he shows anger, the father will assume that it is true, and he will start years of bullying about him having affairs with Elves. So he swallows the excuses he was about to utter. Still the sisters do not wait for any reply to make an opinion: he is meeting Elves! He has to be extra careful now. They even may actually spy on him, he heard of stories like that. It even had happened in school, where other children had followed him in town several times, to see who he was meeting.

The bullying continues on his clothing, too outdated and gaudy after his mother, speaking to him as if he was still her baby needing to learn to clothe. The sisters giggle at him, while the father makes a worried look toward him, apparently thinking perfectly normal that his adult son gets a public scolding for such trivial and personal matters.

Milton tries to slip away by saying that he is going to the restaurant with Annette. Blunder! They reply angrily that she is away from Tellutaar with her family! This benign lie make them speaking harsh now, and Milton tries desperately to escape.

Suddenly he hears a young lady calling him cheerfully «hello professor Earmann» with a merry smile. One of his students! This is the first time he is called like that in public! He realizes that he is no longer a child submitted to his parents, but an adult, in whom the society, the University and his students put a lot of trust and hope, for his high capacities and learning.

So he just say good bye and slips away, avoiding to reply to their questions in order to stop the discussion. But he realizes that he is now barred from the beach, where they often are on beautiful days. Or he needs to go very early in the morning. Yes, that. There usually are fewer people in the morning, and not these ugly musics from the shops.

The evening he gets a phone call from Annette, about his supposed restaurant rendez-vous. He makes a low profile, saying that he mistook the week. Still she is angry, saying that he should get out with her more often. This thought makes Milton weary. Wasting a whole evening just for speaking of nothing? He would be unable of that.

She also alludes to him meeting Elves. But she concludes that «anyway» the Elves just completely banned the Listal system, so that he has no chance of cheating on her. This makes her laugh, but not him, from displaying openly such a lack of confidence, even before marriage.

But he also understand why the Elven Council took such a measure, from the deadly danger for teenage Elves wanting to convert a Human. Later, checking this new on Margom Info, he finds the Nyidiath-side reason: scammers pretending to be Elves, often on dating sites. Most Humans are still unable to recognize a real Elf when he is not wearing long hairs and colorful clothes. Conversely, they do not recognize a crook when he is clothed as an Elf. There had been lawsuits for rape or gray marriage, and even a movement of male Humans pretending that wearing a listal entitles them into taking any Elve by force. Others had lost a lot of money to «pay for the Dauriath trip» or for «secret elven projects». Some thinkers had started warning of these dangers for unsuspecting young Humans, and we are now in the stage of law makers debates. The real Elven Council had to be proactive, or they would receive the blame for the false Elves. So that they had decreed that the listal has no more any value. Well, the magic could not be really removed, and it would still operate for the sincere candidates, but that the Council had no need to mention it. As to funding requests and plane tickets, they now have to be formally approved by the Elven embassies of the country. And, well, they never ask random people to take part in «secret funding», or it would not be a secret.

In the depths of the Gegy

The next weekend sees Milton back in the Gegy. This time, a lecture is going on in the sofas main room, with about twenty persons:

«Academies are important to science, as in several other domains. They are warrant that science remains in the good methods, and focused on useful researches. Historically the Human governments founded academies, to ensure that science remained busy on what they deemed useful: measurement, surveying, time keeping, etc. Today they foster research on health and technology. Useful researches indeed, but this general direction is not neutral, it reflects the materialistic and egotic values of today societies in the Nyidiath. Today science is funded by governments and companies which main purpose is to protect the interests of a small minority or rich people. And, in order to avoid their citizens to escape the grasp of this egotic minority, they ridicule and fight the field of consciousness. And of course of its consequences: spirituality, purpose of life and ethics. They do that because these fields are precisely what allows to escape the manipulation by this minority and their media. And corollaries like parapsychology are not only ignored, but in more ridiculed and called pseudo-science.

«To be fair, there also is a lot of pseudoscience and cookery in parapsychology. This always is what happens in a field left without control. These useful idiots serve as a very efficient boosting disinformation against the true researchers.

«This is why we are doing our own academy, for the research on consciousness, to obviate the shortcomings of the ancient academia. Well, to call our organization an academia is a bit far fetched, since we are still in an exploratory phase, in more in a domain where classical binary forms of reasoning are most often invalid. But from this fuzziness of seemingly contradictory theories, is slowly emerging a subtle order.

Two or three invite Milton to another place, through one of the teleportals. He is quite surprised to find a whole underground level, with a large central room and random corridors leading to several balconies opening in the forest around, on the slopes of the hill. These are charming places, surrounded by flowers and greenery looking like stained glass, where here and there people are studying or reading silently. Other rooms are closed, but they likely contain libraries or offices. The vault of the Gegy is still deeper in the mountain, and he is told that there are «many» other levels well bellow. They say that this is because the Gegy is an underground organization.

A good point in the virtual, is that we can do a rumpus of a noise in a room, and in the next room people are not disturbed.

But his new hosts want to show Milton something precisely. They go from room to room, in order to find it. Well, they are looking for somebody, who suddenly appears behind them.

Ok, not the usual Elf.

Imagine a tall man, with a mass of beard and long curled black hairs. He wears a dark purple toga with some golden embroideries and symbols. But the most extraordinary is his hat: a dark blue pointy cone with shiny stars and dots of light orbiting around it. Yes in the virtual we can do this, and quite simply!

«Hello Master» say the other Elves.

-Mil, meet Master Shaun Rang.

-Haha, Master Shaun Rang replies with an ample baritone voice, I am not really a spiritual master. But in ancient times I was a philosophy teacher! The title «Master» stuck. But be reassured, I never commanded to anybody. For all these years I lived in Shelenaë’s paradise, but now I am reincarnated to fulfill my project: to unite science and spirituality. What better epoch to do that! And, well, this Gegy is perfect for that.

«Actually, the Gegy has a long history. When the Elves arrived in the Dauriath, just after the Exodus seven centuries ago, they understood that they had to develop science and technology before the Humans did. Because well, modern weapons are stronger than the ancient magic. Then, without defense, the Elves would be crushed again, even eradicated forever. Especially the Human population was starting to grow exponentially, giving them more collective magical strength than the some hundred Elven maguses.

«However some Elves disagreed with this plan, thinking that magic should be bettered instead. But they had little ideas on how to do that, so that they remained a small minority. In more, by the time it was difficult to travel in the Dauriath. They had to gather in several local groups, meeting every twelve years to exchange views. This event is called the Sagarmathar, and it is still happening today, but every year now. One of these groups evolved into the Gegy. But it is only recently that we started to have a significant advance in the science of magic, with General Epistemology.

-But how do you connect in this virtual world, from Shelenaë’s paradise?

-Ha ha! I don’t do that. We have a principle of how to do that, explained in the book. But for now, I simply reincarnated. Of course my new physical body is not looking like that, and neither did my previous body. I take profit that we are in the virtual to show my spiritual body, the one of the paradise, ha ha!»

Master Shaun Rang looks ample and strong, maybe a bit scary. Yet he is a very kind man. He contributes to the Gegy work with his ancient and mysterious energy, which origins are lost in History, even before most of the Elves living today. In more, he is the only Human here able to do magic.

«Are you a Human?

-Ha ha he replies. That was the plan when I reincarnated... But I am turning Elf, even if I try to avoid it! The idea was to help Humans in the real science. But for this I needed to be their peer, that is another Human. I just hope that nobody notices that I am becoming an Elf. But it is sometimes difficult, for instance when friends invite me to the restaurant, I must eat like them, and fast for several days afterward!

«I too work as a scientist in the Nyidiath, but in physics. This will come in handy, because if the mind can control matter, physicists must be able to understand how matter is susceptible to that. Quantum Physics is the first step in this direction, but it is not enough.

-Quantum Physics, helping to explain magic?

-Oooh, ooh, ooh, not so fast. Be careful, because there are a lot of crooks playing on this ground. What Quantum Physics brings, is that it liberates us from the metaphysical dogma of materialism. Today physicist are suspecting, without daring to say it openly, that their fantastic theoretical scaffolding is built on sand. This is why so many opposed the Tellutaar Interpretation (Note of the author: Copenhagen Interpretation) which says that «there is no hidden reality under what is observable». Today physicists are just able to say that this is a mystery, but until now none draw the obvious conclusion. I am working on this: to accept and assume that matter has no absolute existence. The revised Tellutaar interpretation is that «logical causal relationships between its elements are enough to explain our universe, including our sensation that it is «concrete», without the need that these elements exist absolutely». This daring inversion of paradigm earned me my place in the Gegy, but in my nuclear physics lab in the Nyidiath I still need to keep silent on this. Yet some are starting to speak at low voice.

-And, replies an Elve, the Sagarmathar is still taking place today, every summer! It is is when the Nyidiath Universities close, so that the Human scientists can join the fray too. We make a great feast of several weeks, with exchanges and discussions, partly in the virtual, partly in the Dauriath. It is very important to keep track of each other. And, well, sometimes to remove contributors who went astray. We are a free research group, but we are serious too.

-Mil, you may be invited in the Dauriath for the Sagarmathar. Prepare an excuse for your family, ha ha ha ha!

-Well, waiting for that, concludes Master Shaun Rang, you may like to visit my virtual place, that I modeled after my paradise place. It smells good of old alchemy parchment, and you will certainly like the orrery.

-Yes Master’s place is fantastic, just that was enough to add it to the Gegy virtual world.»

As said, as done, they enter a teleporter. Such items look like doors, filled with mist, or sometimes with a view of what is supposed to lie beyond. This one shows dark red mist, and when they pass through, it leads into a small elongated room, in another simulator. It is dark, all in reddish brownish rock. On the ground, there is, well, a Decauville track. A kind of wagon is waiting for them. «I have the same thing in my Shelenaë place, but much bigger. Here in the virtual they did not allowed me to have it that big, but still it is interesting».

As soon as they are all five seating on the wagon, it starts moving with a faint and pleasant whizzing sound. The track descend in a dark gallery, winding left and right. That lasts about a minute, when suddenly the cavern enlarges into obscure spaces, above, on the side, sometimes under. Shiny crystals start to appear on the walls, first small and isolated, then in groups. Suddenly they emerge in a vast expanse, brightly illuminated with thousands of crystals arranged in tufts and colored harmonies. A gorgeous orgy of colors and textures! On the sides, irregular galleries lead to even more luminous rooms in pastel hues, where indiscernible objects are moving with faint strange sounds. The wagon slows down to let them admire, but it soon enters in another dark tunnel.

The last room is again of dark reddish rock, dark, with jewels shining in orange or yellow. The wagon stops against a tall building with reddish sloped walls, sculptures, small cornices and windows, illuminated from inside with colors of fire. Above, the ceiling is lost in a violet mist with a soft inner light. Around are curious dark brown plants and trees, with luminous red flowers. Here and then shines an aquamarine lamp, preventing the eye to be accustomed to the red, and the whole setting vibrates intensely of ancient mysteries and power, of a strange occult beauty.

A dark steel door opens in the wall, surrounded with sculptures of griffons with shiny red eyes. For a second, Milton is astonished to see this in the wonderful Estrellar, but we are to understand why this is there.

They enter the door on foot. It is again a change of simulator, opening in a dark tunnel of hewn rock, with patches of shining crystals providing for the light. Obscure passages alternate on the sides, sometimes with closed doors, sometimes with grids, each a new and attracting mystery. A last door opens in the end of the tunnel, into Master Shaun Rang’s very own lair.

«Welcome in my alchemy laboratory. Again it is a copy of my Shelenaë’s place, more faithful this one. Imagine the secret dwelling of an ancient alchemist... although probably none ever had one that large. All what you see, these scrolls and strange instruments, are reminiscent of the beginning of science in the Nyidiath, in a time where it was severely repressed by religion. We had to ask for many wrathful protections, hence the style of this place, and the numerous representations of frightening creatures. This was to ward off the inquisitive priests. There were many places like that, and today in Tellutaar you still have the well preserved Foggier temple, that you certainly visited. It is a Zug, that is a rectangular temple for wrathful protective deities. Some said it originally was painted in dark red, but no proof was ever found, and it is very well like that, in black basalt.»

The room is large, all in dark brown sculptured wood enhanced with copper bands and shining red carbuncles. On the ground is a carpet of ocher and brown colors, which patterns seem to repeat, but never in the same way. There are no definite walls, but shelves and cabinets, with passages between, irregularly set all around. Further in these passages are moving lights, or strange alchemy apparatuses, retorts and cucurbits, armillary spheres and gnomons, mysterious glyphs and symbols, rows of scrolls and jars with colorful content. In the middle is a round table of sculptured waxed dark wood, with chairs in the same style, and Master’s large armchair with a high back. The top of the table has an inlaid compass rose, made of contrasting dark and ocher wood. Looking closer, a good share of this dark wood is purplish, from a once rare tree in the Nyidiath. It had been imported to the Dauriath with the Exodus, but it needed three centuries to multiply and become a common resource.

But what strikes the eye is the orrery! It occupies the whole dark blue dome ceiling, strewn with shiny stars. The slowly rotating ecliptic circle and epicycles are of pure gold, with gradations, wraiths and symbols. It is very beautiful, and fascinating to observe the large gold rings majestically shifting above their heads. The planets are relatively small in comparison, appearing as shining orbs. In the virtual, mechanical parts do not need to be supported, so that the planets and rings just levitate above their heads.

«This is the Middle Ages version, before the Exodus, still Nyidiocentric. I can switch to the antic Flat Nyidiath version, or to the modern heliocentric version. But this one is more spectacular, with the entangled epicycles.»

Indeed the view of the complex golden epicycles slowly crisscrossing each other is breathtaking!

«This ceiling is symbolic, but I can switch to real images of the starry sky, enhanced in luminosity to show the galaxies and all.»

He presses an invisible switch, and suddenly only the enhanced galaxies can be seen. We usually do not see the galaxies, not because they are small, but because they emit very few light. Once enhanced, they appear much bigger than we think, and it is a fantastic view! With fuzzy spirals or pink patches of star nurseries, as we would see them with the naked eyes. Another switch, and the dark lanes in the Milky Way show up in bright orange! Still another position, and it is all the blinking pulsars with their frightening sounds!

Clearly Master Shaun Rang had updated his knowledge, since the times of Alchemy...

But he kept his ancient style, so far away of the dreary white or gray physics labs!!

They sit around the table, Master in his armchair with the high sculptured back. It shows a sun, surrounded by rays and strange animals. Master’s head fits just in the sun. They speak for hours, not from epistemology or science, but of ancient times. Actually, Master recollects only little, because it is very hard to keep memories of past lives or of spiritual worlds. But he was strongly inspirited into building this lair, because he had created it in the spiritual world of Shelenaë. Hence these images, so infused with force for him, that they are part of his psyche.

Later on, they take the wagon again, in the other direction, to go back to the Gegy. They could simply teleport, but the track and tunnel are so funny! Here takes place a curious incident: while they are running upward on the track, another wagon is descending at full speed! Milton has just the time to see the other people in the other wagon, before the unavoidable collision! He closes his eyes... and the two carriages just pass through each other, with all their passengers! They all laugh. This is a virtual world, do not forget. But when we are not used to it, we can get some good scares like that!

There is no day or night in the virtual, no sunrise no sunset. But Milton suddenly realizes that in the physical wold these things are still existing, and it must be very late. Near time to get up to go to work! He still manages to get some sleep, and to feel a good stamina all his day in the University, full of energy with all what he saw.

An abusive family

The next Saturday he gets an avalanche of phone calls from his family, and a daring visit of Annette in his «boy’s lair»!

She is angry, that he did not invited her in the restaurant. He just avoids to reply that the University restaurant is very good, but she would likely not feel well with all these... workers.

Milton feels very bad. He thinks he is engaged with her, even if they never went in bed together (Most people today go to bed first, and they marry after). He takes his engagement very seriously, and does not want to be the one breaking it. But, on the other hand, he is afraid by the mere idea of spending a life in her constant scolding, more the blackmail from both families (He little met her parents, but they showed a silent disdain, because of his «lower social position»). So he tries to buy time, before comes the moment she will be constantly with him, leaving him no space for his own thoughts, or commanding everything in the house, what he eats, how he clothes, that he must play the tennis, etc. More the constant blather and unpredictable emotional bouts of the television!

With her, he would have no way to connect to the Gegy, without she looks over his shoulder of even she tries to log in his name when he is not at home. Even his work at the University would be heavily compromised: she would constantly interrupt him while he would be correcting copies, speak to him, put the television loud, and suddenly scream for help ten times a day.

Not replying to her constant blather does not work either: she gets angry, trying to steal his attention with more and more extreme stunts.

Suddenly he hears her saying:

«You were not even able to declare your love yourself, you had to ask your mother to do this for you!»

For some seconds, there is a blank.

Could it be that...

No it is impossible.

He finally realizes what had happened: he never asked anything to his mother. Right on the contrary, on his side, it was his own father who said him that Annette loved him!! But that she did not dared to declare, due to his «inferior social position». The same evening, they were made to dance together in a ball, each thinking to be loved by the other. This is how they became «fiancés», both thinking that the other declared, but without saying any word themselves!

Flabbergasted, he can only look at her silently, before trying: «my father also said to me that you loved me, but that you did not wanted to declare yourself». But, too busy speaking, she does not get it, not realizing the implications: they were both lied to, to make an arranged marriage! Since this is forbidden, their parents presented things so that they both think that the other really loved them. Her own parents likely were in the know too, for some reason, like to repay for a past service, to accept a «lower social position» son-in-law.

She ends up realizing that he is no longer speaking, just staring silently at her. But instead of asking what is the matter, she just gets frightened. She hastily says good bye and leaves.

Milton is not relieved so easily, though. He still thinks that they are engaged, that she still loves him in her bizarre way. He just spends the reminder of the weekend in another place, so that not to get any other visit. He even put a password to his Gegy computer, in case they manage to sneak in his apartment. We never know, a key is so easily copied, and he never thought at protecting himself seriously.

In a new week in the faculty, he is so disturbed that people remark it. He says that he is having family problems. Until Friday evening, a moment before leaving the work, Professor Schwanz gets him in his bureau, over some work papers, and a convened gesture to stay professional (not Gegy).

He asks: «Is it about Annette?

-Yes» Milton utters at low voice.

He adds: «I don’t know what to do with her. If we marry I cannot trust my very own home anymore, for my, hem, Internet activities. Even my University work will become impossible.

-This. Will. Not. Happen. Says Professor Schwanz, at low voice but well detaching the syllables.

-How?

-Annette Dunning announced loud and clear that she is now fiancee with Conrad Kruger, son of one of the owners of the Kruger&Wesson bank, and direct descendant of the ancient Krougan forge master clan. At least he is on a much higher «social level» than you, ha ha ha! (Note of the author: now you understand why I called her «Annette Barbaroux»!) For her, as a woman, she does not so much need a high social level, since she has nice buttocks.

-You mean that... she dropped me??

-Yes she did. Sorry to tell you. But you would soon learn it anyway, and in a less pleasant manner.»

Milton remains a moment pale and mute. Then he slowly understand that this is a very good new after all. His future of sorrow is dissipating!

«They will form the Dunning-Kruger family, and I think this name suits them perfectly. Just this morning, he wanted to show off in front of her, by steering his yacht himself in the Tellutaar marina. He must have thought that driving a boat is just like driving a car. BLAMM into the yacht on the left. Panicking, he quickly turned the helm to the right... BLAMM into the boat on the other side. Where is the brake? But there are no brakes on a boat... so BLAMM into the pier. At this point, Miss Dunning, frightened, asked him to stop. They are a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

«The cost of his silliness raised to about a million in just a single minute. Such a debt would ruin any worker’s family for their entire life. But well, it is just fun for him, he even not apologized to the other boat owners. They were seen all together drinking in the yachting club just after, with Annette cooing like a turtledove to be with such celebrities.»

Milton needs some times to digest the new. But finally it is a pleasant new. So that he starts to smile silently for a minute. Professor Schwanz slowly understands that Milton is relieved. They stay a moment like that, then Professor ends the meeting with «I must go, I still have some telework to complete (A code for «meet me in the Gegy»). I am glad that you finally understood that Annette was not a good companion.»

When Milton enters his home, the phone is ringing.

His father.

«You lost, son.

-I lost what?

-Are you kidding me? Or are you totally derealized? You lost an unique opportunity to access a higher social level, by becoming the son-in-law of Arth Dunning, deputy in the Tellutaar town council and CEO of the Dunning Asset Management.

-How so?

-Because Annette dropped you like an old sock, with all your nonsense of meditating in the forest or living in seclusion in a secret bedroom, perhaps receiving twinks!»

Milton wants to reply something strong, but a whole childhood of unconscious fear is still inhibiting him, and he is just able to stutter apologies. Then he takes pretext of his work to elude any further scolding:

«I have a lot of homework to correct for tomorrow. I need to start right now

-Tomorrow is Saturday» screams the father, but Milton is already hanging up the phone. It rings again at once, this time it is the number of his mother. Pheeww! He hesitates before picking up the call, when another unknown one rings behind her. That makes a pretext, so that he picks up the unknown one. But it may be the worse call he ever got:

«Hello, I am Conrad Kruger. Are you professor Earmann?»

Flabbergasted, he cannot reply anything more than a strangulated yes. This guy has some nerve, or he is totally mad. But Kruger continues, sure of his righteousness:

«I took Annette for me. I know that you were fiancés. But I am generous. I can indemnify you. I can give you a lot of money.»

That one, Milton never expected it. Some guys are still thinking like that? Selling a woman would connect him to the worse in this world. So that he just replies with a half-lie:

«Actually, it was an arranged union, without love. You owe me nothing» and he hangs up and swiftly disconnects the phone before yet another nutcase rings in. He shivers retrospectively: some money costs much more than anything it can buy.

Not accounting that they would chatter, and everybody would know that he did that, thus ruining his repute. A Kruger can allow himself to buy a woman, but him would go straight to jail.

Gunma Nolween

Milton, relieved, sees the familiar image of the Gegy main room forming on his screen. At once an IM from Professor Schwanz rings, with a teleport invite: «Please come, Gunma Nolween asked for you, she has things to discuss with you. She is a priestess of Shelenaë. She is not part of the Gegy, but she understood that it is important, so that she decided to help us personally. It is her Service to life»

The teleportation leads him in Professor Schwanz’s bureau, lower in the Gegy undergrounds. It is a small rounded room, with nothing special past some artificial neural networks diagrams on the walls. Seemingly Professor uses it for some experiments that he will not tell to Milton.

«Mil, we are free to speak here. Although I said what I had to say. Gunma will tell you more of her own. But I must warn you that she is a very strange person, even to the Elven standards. So do not be surprised. Also she will speak you of love, but of course do not take this as an invite. She is married anyway. And, well, the most important with her is between the words. She is a magician, you know.

-You make me curious, and waiting for her invite. But I wonder, how could you know what happened in the yachting club of the marina? It is forbidden to normal people.

-Ha ha, indeed, this was typically not the question to ask in my University bureau! But here I can tell. Rich people have a weak point: as they are too lazy to work themselves, they need armies of domestics, servants, butlers, drivers, cooks, gardeners, sommeliers, bodyguards. And they think that such people are not persons, just things. Yet those servants have ears.

-Milton: you say, the Elves infiltrate the staff of all the place for rich people?

-Professor: of no, not like that. That would need tens of thousands of Elves serving the rich all their lives, for a minute of interesting data here and then. An utter waste of life time, and if they are caught it is very bad for them. The Elves have more subtle methods! Since centuries and even before the Exodus, the Elven Council knows everything it needs to know. But they do not speak of this. My guess is that they just visit people in their dreams. This way, they get any information they want, without anybody realizes, and even can do anything about it.

-That is the strangest thing I ever heard, lol

-Well, for the bar, I have my own intelligence network, more classical ha ha! One of my student works there, to pay for his studies. The marina lounge is the weak point of the whole Tellutaar nobility, ha ha ha!

-Well, that looks a simpler explanation, ha ha!

-Oh, and be reassured for the innocents, she abandoned her law studies. She thought that she does not need them anymore, now that she is rich. Until he drops her for other buttocks, and she will have to wash the dishes in the yachting club, still serving him, ha ha ha ha!

-Ooof, better so. Which justice would she render, her father was paying all her speed tickets.

-She does not yet suspect that this fop has rather special love tastes. He waits to be married to surprise her. Great adventures in perspective!

-I prefer not to know, ha ha ha!»

Professor Schwanz changes tone, for a more confidential one:

«Mil, do not be afraid of being alone with a Shelenaë priestess in her Ombo. It is in the same time a temple and her home. Her Mandala, if you prefer. This will seem all new and strange for you, but Elves do things like that regularly. «Gunma» means that she is kinda a doctor of the heart. You may need to speak of some things, if you want of course. I am now in IM with her, and she is sending you a teleport request. This may be a very important conversation for you»

Intrigued, Milton accepts the teleport request. This one leads him into a totally different landscape, another simulator, the deep Estrellar, known only to the ancient Dauriath Elves. Imagine a cavern of greenery and foliage in a thick forest, vibrating with a fresh deep rainforest green, between an emerald stained glass canopy a hundred meters higher, and the shadowy recesses between the bushes all around. Vines with brown hairs or pale blue flowers hang from smaller trees, and mossy rocks are strewn here and there. There is no grass on the ground, but several kinds of thick moss with some discreet red spots. The trees and thickets all around are compact, with no obvious paths getting in or out of the clearing, just a teleport landing pad in front of the house. It is a strange building half way between an ivy-covered antic ruin and some modern ecological house, enveloped by the roots of an improbably huge tree. There even are some round windows in the trunk. Around is a garden with a surprising variety of plants and flowers.

The inside of the house is, on the contrary, warm and cozy, with orange and brown colors, as if illuminated by a fire. You may think at Master Yoda’s rounded house and windows, but bigger, more orange, and with more details.

Gunma Nolween is sitting in a large sofa, slowly muttering some mantra. She has long smooth hair of a warm chestnut brown, and nice features. Other sofas are around, and Milton takes one. The room is decorated with various sculptures or pots with plants, integrated in the curved wood walls, which veins form hypnotic zigzag patterns. On shelves, unknown objects have gold reflections or rainbow speckles of light. A small altar has an image of Shelenaë and some ritual offerings.

She starts, without any preamble or hello:

«Mil, I wanted to speak to you. You may think it is about this woman who pretended to be yours. But what I have to say is not what you think.»

She is very beautiful, and even sensual. But she avoids arising any emotion of this kind into Milton’s heart. He understands that she is married anyway. More, Elves like to keep this kind of feelings under control, until they are appropriate.

«Important things happened recently in our two worlds»

She speaks slowly, of a low voice, as if unveiling some mystery. Her simple robe descends half her thighs, in the surrounding orange tones, made of a lot of short ribbons like roof slates. She is bare feet on the orange-brown carpet. In the virtual, the ground is always warm and clean.

«You heard that the Listals were banned, due to too much abuse. But we have a much more fundamental reason.»

Her deep and moving voice is calm and soothing, while expressing strength in the same time.

«Actually, the magical love matching system behind them cannot be removed. It is a powerful karma of thousands years of meditation, and it would need even more to be suppressed.«

She leaves long silences between her statements, so as to leave them impregnate Milton’s mind. Although there cannot be smells in the virtual, he clearly feels a sweet perfume emanating from her.

«What we did instead, is to extend its activity to Humans.»

That was unexpected. Why such a fantastic gift?

«Yes, to Humans like you. We did that because the old model of some evolved Elves among many primitive Humans is changing: all the Humans will now raise their level together, and everybody will become an Elf, in some centuries.»

The only sounds are the chirping of birds, high above in the canopy of the forest, that the echoes transform in a strange and mysterious reverberation. More a constant dripping of condensation from the trees. With the surround sound, Milton really feels as if he was immersed int the forest all around him! At times, an unknown animal hoots. There are no large animals in the Dauriath, but in the virtual there may be imaginary ones.

«We had to accompany this process, by offering the love matching system to all the Humans. This way, good Humans will be able to form harmonious couples, positively contributing to the whole society. And if they want children, they can educate them well.»

She is slowly counting brown grains in her rosary, from some mindfulness meditation practice.

«This system will also protect you Humans against love mismatches and bad partners. You were among the first ones to benefit of this. Your marriage with this superficial woman would have been a catastrophe, ruining your life, your projects, your children. I know you do not want children, but still she would arrange to have some, as hostages against you. So many bad women use their motherhood as a weapon.

-You mean, you manipulated me?

-No, not you, her. It was not difficult, with this man they literally jumped on each other. She even said that she felt «liberated» from you!

-Really? Ha ha ha ha!

-Anyway it is not a deliberate action of anybody. The decisions happen in the Mithlon, the inter-personal consciousness space, free of any individual ego. This makes that they are always right. This is how operates our magical love match system.»

-Well, I feel relieved, anyway. I realize that she never attracted me. Even her corporeal beauty looks fake, a bait. So that my feeling is much more of a liberation, not a loss.

-Good, you will no longer jump at the first nice body. Corporeal beauty is good when it is with the right person, otherwise it is a terrible trap»

At times, some faint sounds arrive from her home in the physical world, through her microphone: flute, somebody working at something, or ducks playing and splashing. It feels as if they were in her physical home, with all the warmth and peace of a happy life.

Gunma: «The flute, it is my daughter Gylma. She is soon to leave the nest.

«I also took care that your parents will somewhat let you at peace. They will instead focus on the pok pok pok game of your sisters. I do not understand why they gesticulate so much to avoid this ball from falling on the ground, they just have ho hang it at a nail.

«The good point is that you do not need to cut ties with your family, as long as you stop mindlessly obeying them. Good things can still happen in the future, when they are older, with death looming ahead, and they realize the futility of their purposes. They will come back to you at this time.»

In the presence of this strange lady, Milton feels himself calm, accepted, and even loved. Everything is round and clear, without shadows or fuzziness. The warm comfy house and the fresh forest around strengthen these feelings. And this is only in the virtual, how it must be in her Dauriath house?

«Ha yes, she comments, visibly sensing his thoughts: my physical house in the Undar is, well, better, with real growing plants, and the trunk of a real tree, widened by magically controlling its growth. My wonderful husband created this fantastic virtual place, so that I can receive people from the Nyidiath, without a long travel. But he is not showing up here when I am working!

«Mil, feel free to take a real love when you want. You will just need to wish for that, and it will happen. Maybe not too soon, because you must learn to become self-determined first, instead of submitting to any whim from anybody. Some opportunities are already taking shape in the Mithlon.

«For now, you are a good willed and honest person, and this is excellent. However this is not enough, people need more spiritual evolution to really master their situation. In a couple with the right partner, it can go really faster. And if you decide to have children, they will have a very good start in life.»

Speaking with Gunma is as strong as declaring love to a woman. He feels the strength of her words flowing in his body. And apparently, if well used, the Internet has no power to reduce the energy of such places.

Milton: «What is exactly a priestess of Shelenaë doing? I thought you were making rituals, singing and the like?

-Ah, this, yes we do. But a ritual is just a tool. There is much more than that with Shelenaë. This virtual place is just an image, we must have a ritual garden with real plants, and we must be a mother. But we do a lot of meditation too, to keep in contact with Shelenaë. We are the guardians of the magic of the Elves, offering our persona as receptacle for Her intents.

-You are in contact with Shelenaë? How?»

She just smiles. And Milton... feels a hand of his shoulder. But he sees nobody! He is so excited that this feeling dissipates. Was it Shelenaë in person? Or a lesser entity? Or just an illusion? He thinks that he is not deserving that.

Gunma: «Ha ha! Beware if you think that you are not worthy of Shelenaë. She loves humble people like you, and She will give you more help, ha ha!»

«Well, now I think we said everything which had to be said, and it is time to part, before dissipating the energy of this meeting. Mil, pay more attention to your dreams, they may tell you things in advance.»

Milton suddenly finds himself in the Nyidi-Gateway 3, where he still has his home point. He also realizes that nothing has been recorded in his conversation logs, not even the URL of the place. He is a bit frustrated, before understanding that the essential is in his mind: the powerful energy of Gunma Nolween. This definitively cannot be encoded in computer data.

It is evening late, Milton switches his computer off, and he goes to bed without even thinking at the meal. He realizes that he would have felt some of Gunma’s words as harsh and humiliating criticism, if they had been uttered by anybody else. But from this fairy, they appear as lights illuminating his path. This is her magic. He knows what he has to do. He is full of an incredible energy to do it. A sweet and calm energy as in Gunma’s house. He is ready for meditating to become better, ready for his University work.

Out of curiosity, he looks at the missed calls in his phone: 5 recorded messages from his mother, 7 from his sisters, one from Kruger, and 2 from his father. Hmm, tomorrow. Or maybe, well, later, when he will be self-determined enough.

Scenario, graphics, sounds, colours, realization: Richard Trigaux (Unless indicated otherwise).

The Elves of the Dauriath