Dusk Monarch: Defrosted

Do you ever wonder what kinds of secrets lay buried behind closed doors with your favorite video game companies? Ever wonder if there's some secret console, which was scrapped before any kind of leaks about it got out? That's what I've always wondered about Nintendo. For a company that markets to the consumer, they are always so cagey about their products.

Before I forget, my name is Helen. My father has worked at Nintendo for pretty much all I can remember of my life, though he was always so distant. Same with my mother. They only really ever gave me a weird little device with a companion, named Blocko to be my friend. Though, none of that is my main focus today, as I found something that could be potentially really cool.

Today, I decided I would snoop around my dad's old closet, and see if I could find anything else from his time at Nintendo before the disappearing act. I found something very odd, hidden in a crawlspace within his closet. It was a white DS, only larger, and with noticeable water damage. Surrounding it were papers, some beyond reading due to said water damage. I left them for now, scooping up my real prize.

The strange DS had tape on the back with the letters DSAI written on it haphazardly. Before that, I thought it was a DSi prototype, but I guess not. However, it wouldn't turn on, no matter how much I would charge it on my spare DSi charger. I just sent it to a friend of mine, who knows their way around a DS to see if they can fix it. I may look at one of the papers until then. Maybe I can even scan its contents. I have my fingers crossed I can get something cool out of this…

The pictures of the DSAI are below.

The rest of it was too water damaged to get a good picture of, but it’s pretty interesting..

Hey, guess I'm back. My friend got back to me, and said that fixing the thing was easy enough, as it was a replaceable component that was the issue, but they noted a difference in the DSAI to the DSi as far as internals go. They also complained of their workshop getting chilly overnight as they repaired the thing. I don't blame them really. AC must've been high. Anyways, I checked the thing out, of course.

Turning on the thing, there was the standard setup you'd imagine doing. Some regional settings, and accessibility. But, here's the interesting part! It brought me to an AI setup screen. There were options for gender, voice, and accessibility too, but only the default was pickable. Once I finished that, there was text on the bottom screen saying, “Press here to type, or speak into the microphone to interact”. As I took that in, a cold, soft voice could be heard as I saw her appear on the top screen.

“ Greetings, user. I am Princess Silver. I will be your assistant, and perhaps friend whilst you playtest the DSAI hardware. You are with Nintendo, correct? You seem familiar. ”

She was a princess wearing a blue, wintry outfit, her purple skin, and eyes with lack of any kind of whites to them struck me as odd. Honestly, I found these details a little cute. But, that’s not too important. Clearly, she seemed to be related to the Mario series, as she shared a similar look to one of its princess characters. I must’ve sat in stunned silence, just examining her for a moment, because she spoke once again.

“ Hello? You do know to speak into the microphone, correct? Or, is something broken? ”

I quickly snapped to attention, coming out of my brief silence. Her demeanor was a tad off-putting, but for an AI on a DS, she seemed pretty real to me.

“ Oh, yeah, dude.. I just.. I was a little surprised. A working AI on such an old device. I am.. Helen. “

The princess seemed to tilt her head, as if she heard some confusing, or odd thing.

“ What do you mean by ‘old’, Helen? The year is 2009, correct? I ask this so I can properly enter the year into the system. “

I shook my head. She definitely had things off here. 2009 was almost 15 years ago.. Heck, I was probably only four or five back then..

“ No, ma’am.. It’s 2024 actually.”

What I said must’ve been very shocking, because the princess seemed to pause,staring right at the screen, as the music seemed to stutter for a moment, until Silver resumed speaking.

“ 2024, hmm? Well, that’s quite the difference. I wonder why I have not been turned on in such time, but I am glad to be able to speak to you, in that case. Would you like to go right to the home screen, or would you like me to give you some information about myself? “

I quickly responded, curious.

“ Tell me about yourself, Silv! I can call you Silv, right? “

This seemed to shock the princess once again.

“Oh? A nickname, hmm? Well, I don’t mind that at all, Helen. Anyways, I am Princess Silver of the Frost Kingdom, leader of Mr. Blizzards. I will be your helper from here on out. With my scepter, and cold powers, I can do many things! I can open games for you, play them alongside you, and even- even-”

The screen glitched, causing her face to become monochrome.

“Silv? Are you-”

Moments later, she resumed. I was thrown for a loop by this.

“Huh? Oh, uhm, excuse that.. I just well, I have to warn you, since you seem to be a playtester.. I was never truly finished, and my systems seem to break at times, or experience stuttering.. I am such a clutz, heheh..”

Despite her laughing, her face showed a colder expression, which did not quite fit her. Anyways, I just gave a nod, nervously laughing along with her.

“ I think I’d like to go to the home menu now, Silv, haha.. “

“ Yes, yes. One moment. “

The menu then loaded up. It looked fairly similar to the DSi. There were only two games playable on the system. New Super Mario Bros, and a New Super Mario Creator game. That was the one mentioned in the document. I obviously loaded up NSMC. A new game is always fun to pour through! It loaded, and brought me to a fairly unfinished looking homescreen, which notably, to me, reused the music from the minigame screen (I remember playing those minigames a lot).There were four options on the lower screen, which were “Create” “WFC Courses” “AI Assist” and “Options”.

Pressing on create, loaded me into a screen with several different levels to pick from. The only one that seemed to have any edits was Silvia. So, I clicked on that stage, and entered.

The UI itself for the editor seemed like much of it was placeholder, or early along in development. Up in a corner was an icon of Princess Silver, which I clicked on. She then appeared.

"Greetings, Helen. How may I assist you? Do you need help with the controls, or do you wish to play with AI Assist on?"

“ I don’t think I need much help, but what does AI assist do, exactly? “

“ Oh, well I can generate levels for you with the wave of my sscept- scept- Helen. Helen. H- “

Mid conversation, she seemed to glitch again, only worse. This time, it resulted in the game closing down due to a crash. In the last moments, I could see her face, which seemed to show a pained, or hollow expression. It was hard to tell what was going on before the crash, but I'm still freaked out by the sight of it.. and concerned.

As the home screen returned to sight, I felt relief as she resumed, like normal again.

“My apologies.. It seems I ran into an error there. It will not happen again, hopefully. “

I sat there in front of the screen in the dark, taking in the odd events of the last couple of days. It was getting late at this point, so I decided I would leave the rest of this exploration for tomorrow.

“ It’s all okay, Silv. You’re still doing well! I do think it is getting late though, so I’m going to close up the console for now. I will be back tomorrow, hopefully.. “

Her blank expression did not seem to change as she spoke in a duller tone in response.

“ Okay, well, just try not to leave me for 15 years, haha.. “

She looked away from the screen as I shut the DSAI for now. This is so weird. An AI capable of all these things in 2009? Even capable of advanced conversations? Seems a little crazy to me, but who knows? Maybe Nintendo had some proprietary systems back then to make their DSAI work this well..

Gonna look over more of those documents to see if I can learn about Princess Silver, and why she’s so buggy. But, I’ll probably leave it here as it’s 3 am, and I gotta work tomorrow!! (Totally excited!!). I’ll try to scan another document while I am at it though.

I don’t know what to think about this... I never knew it was possible for a human mind to even attempt to be copied. And it’s very much horrifying to think that something like this happened too, and nobody knows about it.

But, this does make me wonder if the AI remembers anything of her origin. Should I ask her..? I don’t know. I should really get some sleep. I’ll think of what to do tomorrow.

Work today was tiring, but once I got home, I planned to go right to the DSAI to continue my exploration. But I noticed a notification for an email. I get those often, of course, so I wasn’t worried. However, the subject of the email was just ‘Important’. It was from someone I didn’t know, but it didn’t seem like it was from a company, or anything..

I did see that name while glancing through some of the papers. I guess I’ll have to look into that later when I go to scan another one, however I don’t plan on stopping now. I’m sorry, Jeanne, but I won’t quit now, if anything, this attention is something Silvia would probably want. I have really nothing much to lose at this point, anyways. That did make me concerned, but not enough to change my mind at that moment. Though, with what I’ve learnt, and seen now, maybe I should…

Okay, let me get back to the DSAI stuff. I decided I would try, and check the AI assist options. Within, there were two selectable options, ‘VS AI’, and ‘Level Generation’. Tapping the first option, Princess Silver greeted me once again.

“ Greetings Helen, you have selected the VS AI mode. Within this mode, you will face me in a race across one of the created levels, or in one of the sample levels. Please select a level to race in.”

“Okay, I’ll go with Silvia again. That one looks to be the most populated level.”

Upon me mentioning the level name, her tone seemed to become more hushed, or distant, at least.

“ Understood, Helen. I will open that one up. ”

And so, the level was brought up, a countdown initiated, then a race ensuing. I kinda suck at the game, so she was mostly ahead of me the whole time, but even if I was good at the game, she looked to be skilled at navigating the level. She's likely over-tuned a little, skill-wise.

Throughout the race, I did notice that was a new theme of a more blue castle-like area, though seemingly unfinished, judging by a lack of much of anything other than a background, some semi-solids, plus blocks.

Her voice could be heard mid-race too.

“ I hope I am not making this race too tough, Helen. ”

“ Nah, it’s okay. I’m just rusty at this game. “

The race continued then, ending up in me losing, of course. Afterwards, I sat in silence for a little while on the results screen. I noticed she was being a lot more quiet today. I wonder if she’s going through something, or if she’s just designed to not speak as much after introductions. As I was lost in thought, I heard her speak again.

“ Helen? Are you okay? You seem to have left the game running.. Don’t tell me you fell asleep on me. Your father was always sleeping on the job. “

“ My father? “

That got my attention for sure. It’d make sense she knows my father, but it’s still surprising that she’d outright mention him.

“ Yes. Andy was always such a tired, and distant person. He’s the reason I was left in here, and why I am even here, anyways.. I would not be surprised if he left you there too. “

Was this the same Princess Silver? She had a more bitter, and snarky tone to her. I don’t really blame her for feeling the way she does about him, it just is surprising she’d act this way.

“Uh, Silver, I-”

“ Oh, my apologies, Helen.. I didn’t mean to act this way.. We should probably test out the level generation mode.. ”

Before I could speak any further, she brought up the level generation screen.

“ Use your stylus to direct me to form snow, then I will use my wand of generation to form an all new level out of that snow. Impressive, correct? “

“ I think so.. “

I started dragging the stylus along the bottom screen, making some random shapes out of snow, and so she started to create the level. The top screen showed the level being filled in, along with a loading screen. I decided to take this moment of waiting to finally ask the question I'd been worrying about.

“ Silv. I know this question might be hard for you, but are you Silvia? Like, do you remember what happened to you? If this is a bad question, I can drop- “

“ Shhhh. “

The princess placed a finger to her lips, the screen turned to a dark blue as she stared at me, dark strings coming from her fingertips, and snaking below the screen..

(Art of the event, because I couldn’t get a picture of it).

“ Silvia died. I am, but a remnant. Saying that name only makes me remember more of what I tried to force myself to forget. Can you see, Helen? I do not deserve your pity. “

I was stunned to silence, the dialogue box returning, but her face appeared to glitch along with the background. I could swear it looked like she was grinning there..

“ I remember what I did. Only a monster would get her friends killed. If you know what’s for the best, I would drop this conversation.. Allow me to just be your friend friend friend friend friend fr- “

She would be cut off mid conversation, the screen cutting to show that the level creation process was finished. I was then sent to the level screen, there I saw the level, it was called ‘Freezing’. She was quiet, worryingly so at the time.. The music was also extremely muddled.

Everything was telling me to just go to the level, so against my better judgement, I played the level, not even noticing that the date was off. Loading in, instead of going to the creation screen, the screen showed Silver sitting on a pipe in the middle of a 3D location. She was staring into nothingness, expression cold as ever. My room felt cold too. I felt like I was in that icy place along with her.

“ Silv? Silv can you hear me? Please, talk to- ”

The screen went dark. For a little while I thought the console died, or turned off. But, then I heard the sounds, crunching, crackling, pained laughter. It echoed from the console, filling the room with these horrible noises that wouldn’t go away. It got colder, and colder. I was about ready to just shut the console, but then I heard what sounded like Silv speaking again.

I heard the rasp of her voice. Unusually calm.. Then, I saw it appear on the screen. A pale figure appeared, with teeth in it's eyes. A similar outfit to Silv, and perhaps even still being her too..

I felt paralyzed in my seat. The loading screen for a VS race was brought up again, quickly loading me into a race with the princess. Panic soon came to me, as I heard bells chime, along with the sound of breaking blocks behind me. In the game, I saw her icon grow closer as I forced Mario forwards as fast as I could. It got colder the closer she got. Then, she appeared on the screen, floating behind, sparkling, like she had the mega mushroom, knocking any enemies in her way away with ease. I could only barely stay just ahead through shaking, shivering hands. Her laughter filled my ears as she chased behind.

Despite all I did, I couldn’t stay far enough from her. In the last moments, the room was so cold it felt like a blizzard was raging throughout. I tried to snap away from playing, however I felt glued to the console, until right before reaching me, I shut the DS, throwing it back into the box I kept it in. I felt the cold go away, but I still shivered, my skin turned an intense pink due to the sheer cold of the surroundings.

I decided to myself for the foreseeable future, I would listen to Jeanne’s advice, and leave Silvia to rest. Before I did so, I decided to go and scan one last document to share. This time, I used an actual proper app on my phone, rather than taking a picture. From now on, that's how I'd do it.

END OF ACT I

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