Tessa

The illusion before her was falling apart and Tessa was sad to see it go. The endless library faded as she focused on it, the books and shelves turning turning transparent with only rare lines remaining to form a complex cage. At the center of the prison, the slime sat, wrapped in the thinnest filigreed chains which light could reflect off.

“How do you know who I am?” Kralt asked. 

In Tessa’s vision, his form shifted between the blue tear-drop slime and a stubbly haired, pasty skinned fifty year old depending on where she focused.

“Class skill,” Tessa said, answering the question only for Lisa on their private channel. “Apparently I get some extra insight about out of context problems like this guy.”

“Well? How!” Kralt demanded.

“This cage? It’s one you made, isn’t it?” Tessa asked. She frowned as the illusion of coffee went flat when she took a long look at it. 

“It’s not a cage,” Kralt said.

Tessa focused on a point well beyond the shelves and brought the lattice work of light which underlaid them into greater clarity.

“Yes it is,” she said. It wasn’t just a cage. She could see where the chains which ran around the slime weren’t binding it but were rather being woven from raw aether by the slime. 

The [Library Primordial] was a construct and even without seeing it’s full scope, Tessa could guess at its purpose.

“I made this. I am not bound here. Not like you are.” The last was meant to be threatening but Tessa couldn’t repress a giggle. 

Slime’s were never designed to be intimidating. Kralt was trying to assuming an aggressive posture but all he had to work with was a mostly spherical blue blob of a body. What was worse for Kralt though was that Tessa could see the little whirls and loops of the cage’s bars and how they could be taken apart without a lot of fuss. If it was a trap, it would have been more robust if it had been made of tissue paper.

“This is the only place you can live in the [Fallen Kingdoms], isn’t it?” Tessa said as she visually traced the pattern of the bars and found the core set which all led back to the slime.

“You know nothing,” Kralt said.

“Is it because he’s stuck in a slime body?” Lisa asked aloud for Kralt to hear as well

“Partially,” Tessa said. “He’s built this room and everything in it, the coffee included unfortunately. I think it’s some kind of extraplanar barnacle that he’s wrapped onto the [Fallen Kingdoms].”

“Why would he do that?”

“I’m guessing he had to,” Tessa said. “When he came over the world must have rejected him because he didn’t have a character. It was this or drop into that universe sized void we passed through when we got dragged here.”

“I had a character!” Kralt said. “I was simply too magnificent for this world to handle.”

“Did you actually play as a normal…no, wait, Dav’kralthrax. You tried to bond with the [First Dragon].”

“He tried to become a god?” Lisa asked.

“I’m betting he won’t admit it, but, yeah, I think it has to be that. Any regular character would have landed him with the rest of us.”

“When did you get here?” Lisa asked, addressing Kralt directly.

“You cannot fathom the depths of time I have seen,” Kralt said.

“Think he was the first one here?” Tessa asked aloud but addressing only Lisa.

“Could be, or maybe the trip left him delusional?” Lisa said.

Tessa examined the slime again. She could see the reflection of David Kralt’s human body which his current form held a memory of? She wasn’t sure if ‘memory’ was the right term. The impression she had of Kralt’s human body was similar to an after image of something that had dissolved into the essence of the slime that sat before them. It wasn’t lost, but she doubted Kralt would be able to call it back. Not how she’d been able to switch her form when she was holding the god soul. If he’d ever been able to take the form of Dav’kralthrax, the [First Dragon], it had been completely lost to him. Apparently even the [Fallen Kingdoms] didn’t have any interest in his nonsense.

“I am not…why are you here?” Kralt asked, moderating his tone after noticing that anger wasn’t getting him anywhere.

“We’re searching for our friends,” Tessa said, giving him a response but not her attention.

“And you seek to consult the All Sage? Of course,” Kralt sad. Tessa noticed the distinct lack of sound effect around the words ‘All Sage’. It wasn’t an official title or class. She wondered if David Kralt knew that?

“I know everything which occurs in my realm,” he said, confirming his ignorance. “And I will share this information. For a price.”

“No you won’t,” Tessa said, rolling her eyes. “You’re trapped in here, with no connection to the rest of the [Fallen Kingdoms]. You don’t know who are or anything that’s happened to us. You’re worthless.”

“I made this world!” Moderation burned in a heart of rage, but the fuel for that fire was as illusory as the [Library Primodial] was.

“You want to take credit for this place?” Tessa asked, her own heart kindling with stories of an old injustice.

When she’d been a fan of the game, it had been her life. She’d researched everything she could about it. She knew who the original development team had been. She’d listened to the interviews where they shared the passion that had gotten them through the long and brutal years of continual crunch time to release the original beta. She’d heard the pride in their voices as they created something that was far more than the sum of its parts and captured the imagination of a generation. And she’s seen the sorrow in their eyes for the leader who hadn’t made it to see the end of the project.

Gail Merriden had been an exception all her life, and taking on a project for which she would never receive the proper credit had been entirely in character for her. Her motto, which her team related in several interviews, was “make your mark here and now” and it had been a guiding principal in the early work on [Broken Horizons], as the team strove to make something that would surpass not only anything else on the market, but anything they’d ever imagined doing before.

For four years, she’d led the team, only for cancer to steal the final joy of releasing her game into the wild from her. When [Broken Horizons] shipped, it was labeled as “a game by David Kralt” with the development team’s credit printed in micro-type in the back of a setup booklet which no one was ever meant to read. 

It had taken a change on management and the purchase of the game by Egress Entertainment to even partially address that wrong and give the original team’s story its due, and David Kralt had fought it at every step, demanding that the game was his legacy and no one else’s in every interview he ever gave.

Kralt must have seen that blazing in Tessa’s eyes, because as her hands clenched into fists, he moved back on his chair and his eyes at last shifted from indignation to a much sensible emotion; fear.

Azma

The crash came not as a terrible jolt but as a horrifying sound. Thanks to the inertial stabilizers, Azma wasn’t thrown from her seat, or even jostled much at all. She made a mental note to arrange a commendation for the shuttle’s engineering crew. She’d demanded they keep the equipment in top condition and from the results she was seeing they hadn’t skimped on their maintenance. It wasn’t their fault that the landing gear sheered off almost instantly, or that the shuttle’s bottom hull screamed as the lithoscape of the satellite moon ripped it to pieces. That wasn’t the horrifying sound however. It was the roar of fire which raised the spectre of mortal peril.

“Suppression systems are failing,” Grenslaw said. “Remain braced. Litho-braking is almost done.”

Litho-braking was a joke which had turned all too real. One did not stop a spacecraft by scraping it across the surface of a planet, especially not one with the wholly unnatural properties of the satellite moon. In order to arrive at their destination though, Azma’s crew hadn’t been given much choice. 

On the plus side it had also meant that they’d been able to do a hard enough burn during their course correction that none of their friendly forces had shot them down, and, as far as they could tell, that the [Formless Hunger] hadn’t been able to react either.

“System, transmit purchase order for this shuttle, my account,” Azma said as a shower of sparks buried the shuttle in fire and light.

“Communications are completely down with the fleet,” Ryschild said. It was neither an admonishment or a question. Ryschild was merely providing a relevant status update for a system Azma had requested monitoring on.

“Yes, that command is meant for the shuttle’s black box. Should the Consortium recover it, they will find that I did not order the destruction of company property, but rather sacrificed a personal transport to fulfill a company objective. It’s the same cost, but so much less paperwork when it’s my ship.”

Azma decided that, while she would fight for any of her people, she was going to adopt Grenslaw and Ryschild into a rare circle in her life. She couldn’t trust them completely of course. They were all in the Consortium. Unconditional trust was madness in the Consortium. That said, her two proteges had earned the position where if someone moved against them in any way, Azma would arrange for the assailiant’s demise. 

Murder was a tool she’d gained a certain notoriety for using, but the reality was she was always careful and discrete with it’s application. If she killed everyone who annoyed her, the lessons she intended to teach would be lost on those who remained. For her proteges though, a certain level of indiscriminate mayhem seemed more than reasonable.

It wasn’t an idle thought either. 

They’d chose to come along with her. Chosen when by all rights and sensibility they should have betrayed her. That choice was going to cost them. The people who were moving against Azma were absolutely going to target her proteges as well, both to get at her and simply because they could.

Grenslaw and Ryschild were going to lose the Consortium’s official sanction, the same as Azma would, but unlike her, they hadn’t developed a reputation which might cause their adversaries to pause before trying to do something quaint like sell them for parts to the Restricted Value Medical Division.

On one level, Azma knew that both Grenslaw and Ryschild were adults and were quite capable of taking care of themselves. On another though, she knew that she was better at that sort of thing, and sometimes being ‘almost good enough’ just wasn’t enough.

“Litho-braking…complete,” Grenslaw said. “All bracings release. Personnel evacuate the shuttle through the remains of the primary loading entrance in the rear.”

Despite the danger she knew they were walking into, Azma didn’t countermand that order. One minute would have been enough to take stock the situation on the ground and formulate a solid plan to ensure their safety. If Grenslaw was ordering an immediate evacuation however, it meant that in one minute the shuttle  would be a flaming ball of metal slag.

Once the three of them, plus the squad of guards Azma had elected to bring along had disembarked Grenslaw’s authority as pilot ended and Azma resumed control.

“Excellent. Ten yards to our target. Commendations,” Azma said, again counting on the monitoring devices she wore to record and transmit the commendation at a timely moment.

“The transports weapon systems have come online,” Fiori, the security team’s Sergeant, said.

“The correct response under the circumstances except for the part where their guns cannot angle down far enough to hit us in this position,” Azma said. “Let’s go see how well their enacting the rest of the security protocol.”

“They will be under orders to kill us on sight,” Fiori said. 

“I should certainly hope so,” Azma said and began striding towards the transports boarding ramp.

Lisa

Some thresholds are perilous to cross not because of the danger which lurks beyond them but because of the opportunities they offer. Lisa was too staggered by the sight of the library beyond the magic portal to process that thought, but Lost Alice’s reflexes were fast enough for her to grab hold of Tessa’s arm before Tessa could stumble through the door.

“You’re seeing this too, right?” Tessa asked, waving her hand at the cosy scene before them.

“Books, coffee, nice lightning? Yeah,” Lisa said. “Should any of that really be in a place like this?”

Tessa took a step back and finally glanced back at Lisa.

“There’s a slime in there,” she said, gesturing to one of the chairs near the table where the coffee had been laid out.

Lisa hadn’t noticed that at first, nor had Lost Alice. Even with being low level still, basic slimes didn’t register as a threat. Typically slimes filled the role of a cute collectible or odd pet but Lisa had never found them particularly appealing. None of that changed the fact that there was, indeed, a slime waiting for them inside the room.

At roughly the size of a basketball, with a body made of blue jello, it would have been hard to determine what the tear-dropped shaped slime was doing. It was the addition of lighter indentations in the shape of big, wide eyes, little eyebrows, and a remarkably expressive mouth that made it clear the slime was watching them and waiting impatiently for the two of them to enter.

“This screams trap, doesn’t it?” Lisa said. It was phrased as a question but she was certain she knew the answer already. 

Doors to magical chambers didn’t tend to fly open when random people walked by them unless the point was to lure those random people to their doom.

“I think you just described this whole place,” Tessa said.

“Yeah, I guess the Ruins are a dungeon.” Lisa had known it was perilous venturing into them but, as with many terrible decisions, it had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

“I was thinking more the world in general,” Tessa said. “That slime’s not normal.”

“Not normal how?” Lisa asked. It smelled like a slime, at least as far as Lost Alice could remember. It wobbled like one too. Even the fine details which made up its ‘face’ seemed to match other slimes. If it was an illusion, it was an exceptional one. 

“I don’t know. It just looks off,” Tessa said and then started forward. “Let’s go find out.”

Lisa could have stopped her. She was faster and stronger than Tessa, but more importantly, Tessa would listen to her. 

Walking into the room was a bad idea. At the least, it would delay they from reuniting with their friends, and if the trap was meant for higher level characters they might never manage to escape it at all.

But Tessa’s voice held a certainty Lisa hadn’t often heard in it. Her partner knew something, maybe not yet consciously, but if that was enough to get Tessa to walk into some new and strange hell, Lisa wasn’t going to let her deal with it alone.

“What are you,” the slime said as they crossed the magical threshold into the [Library Primordial].

“You can talk,” Tessa said.

Lisa was surprised to find the two glaring at each other with the slime apparently so focused on Tessa as to be unaware of the presence of a [Vampire] in front of him. Tessa still knew she was there though, as witness by her reaching out and threading her fingers through Lisa’s without taking her gaze off the slime. Lisa was touched by the gesture until it occurred to her that Tessa was probably trying to hold her back as much as seek comfort in her touch.

“What are you.” The slime was hardly in a position to be imposing. It was blobbed onto the chair and, presumably, capable of little more than bouncing to the floor. It’s tone suggested a far more imperious mindset than the body seemed capable of supporting though.

“Hmm, I wonder if these books are real?” Tessa asked, lifting her gaze from the slime to take in the endless stacks of books around them.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the slime said. 

“And you’re not supposed to be able to talk,” Lisa said.

“Do you know who I am?” the slime asked as though it were impossible someone wouldn’t be familiar with him.

“The coffee’s probably not real either,” Tessa said. “That’s a shame.”

“Aptomos sent you,” the slime said. “Where is he? I am going to melt him down to sludge.”

“I don’t think so,” Tessa said, returning her gaze to the slime. “You need us.”

“You have no idea who I am, do you? I’ve never needed anyone. Now where is Aptomos?”

“You’re Dav’kralthrax,” Tessa said. “Also known as David Kralt.”

Lisa recognized both names and drew in a sharp breath, despite [Vampires] not particularly needing air.

Dav’kralthrax was a figure from the deep lore of [Broken Horizons]. In the backstory of the game though, he wasn’t a slime. He was the [First Dragon], born from the [Primordial Chaos] before the world was forged, or perhaps he was the [Primordial Chaos], the mythology of the [Fallen Kingdoms] was intentionally sketchy on the subject.

His fire was supposedly responsible for casting the stars into the sky and kindling the fledgling sun.

For all his vaunted place in the mythology though, Dav’kralthrax didn’t appear in the game at all, and had no items or areas which related to him. In theory that was a result of the lore which spoke of Dav’s destruction prior to the forming of the [Heavenly Kingdoms].

In reality though, Dav’kralthrax wasn’t reference in anything beyond the oldest development materials because the [First Dragon] was the avatar for the game’s original lead developer.

David Kralt. The man whom Egress Entertainment was contractually required to credit as the designer of [Broken Horizons] despite the fact that he’d been “moved to other projects” after the first year of development, four years before the game even launched, and who had contributed nothing to its growth or popularity thereafter.

Jamal

What had been a simple trek to meet up with their teammates a bit early had been a frantic rush to reach them before tragedy could overtake them. Jamal wished he could be surprised by that. 

“Hey, if we find more of the [Disjoined], let me be the first to engage them ok?” Rose asked on their private channel.

“If we find more [Disjoined], I thought the plan was to out run them?” Jamal said.

“It is,” Rose said. “But you’ve seen how our plans have been going.”

“Ok, fair enough,” Jamal said. “But what do you mean ‘let you engage them’? Why wouldn’t we both blast them to bits?”

“If they’re going to come after someone, it should probably be me,” Rose said.

“Cause [Archers] are tougher than [Dream Spinners]?” Jamal said with a laugh. “We’re both squishy as hell.”

“Yeah, but I can move faster,” Rose said.

“How? We both run at the same speed,” Jamal said. “Well, sort of.”

Rose was definitely moving faster than the baseline run speed all of the adventurers seemed to be able to maintain. 

“I picked up a couple of movement abilities,” Rose said. “I can use either one for a quick escape if I need it.”

“Wait, when did you level?”

“I didn’t.” Rose was moving through the cavernous passageways at a full run so Jamal couldn’t see her face but he still felt like she was shyly turning away from something.

“How did you pick up a new ability then?”

“My class changed.” She said it like it was a minor bit of trivia, which screamed at Jamal just how important it was.

He checked her entry in the party list and saw that she still had the same bow icon beside her name, denoting her as an [Archer], but when he pulled up her stat sheet he saw she was indeed telling the truth.

“What’s a [Lightning Archer] and how did you…oh god, wait, you didn’t?” Jamal knew exactly where her new class had come from with a moments thought but even knowing that he had no idea what it might mean for her.

“It’s a really cool class!” Rose said, her excitement bubbling out of her.

“You made a deal with the [Lord of Storms]? What did you have to give them?”

“Nothing!” Rose said a tad too quick. “Well, nothing specific. I just have to believe in them. You know, to like, feed them god energy.”

“You’re worshipping a living thunderstorm who we met one time?” Jamal asked. It didn’t surprise him all that much. Rose wasn’t adverse to cheating when she had to win. The thought that there was any actual devotion behind her pledge to the [Lord of Storms] seemed ludicrous though.

But then so did the fact that they were in a fantasy world, and he was joined to a mechanical man with a soul.

With his soul.

The part of Jamal’s brain that processed theological questions was so overloaded by everything around him that he knew he wasn’t considering even the simplest implications of it all but, despite that, the idea of saying prayers to a deity from a game seemed deeply weird.

“It’s not like there’s a whole bunch of rules,” Rose said. “I’m just kind of making it up as I go. I figure if I get something wrong, I can just go ask them.”

“Except they packed up their stuff and bundled themself away in some pocket realm that no one can reach for a thousand years,” Jamal said.

“Sounds pretty godly to me,” Rose said.

Jamal frowned. She didn’t usually tease him about religious stuff. 

“Not that they’re a big G ‘God’,” Rose said hastily. “I’m not taking this that seriously. The way I look at it, the [Lord of Storms] is one of the creators of this world. They’re probably the avatar of one of the original designers. That doesn’t make them all knowing or all powerful, but it does mean that they can act like a patron, kind of. So my job is to remember that they’re real and alive and part of the world.”

“Aren’t they dead though?” Jamal asked.

“Do dead people talk to us?”

“Does Lost Alice count?”

“No. She’s not dead. And she better stay like that,” Rose said. “And anyways we’ve been dead here. It’s not the same.”

“Yeah, nothing is,” Jamal said, thinking of the whirring gear noises he made as he ran, trying to keep up with Rose, Lady Midnight and the [Lightning Serpents].

“You are,” Rose said.

Jamal laugh briefly enough that the chat log just showed an emoji.

“This is what I normally look like to you?” he said.

“No, not that. Obviously,” Rose said. “I mean you. The real you. You’re still as awesome as you’ve ever been. Now you can just blow people up with spells too, which is even cooler!”

“You’re still you too though,” Jamal said.

“I don’t think so,” Rose said. “I feel like I’m a lot more like Rip Shot than I used to be. I could never be this brave without her.”

“Wait, have you ever met my friend Rose? Maybe looked in the mirror? Cause she’s like the definition of bravery,” Jamal said. 

Jamal had never understood why “you cry like a girl” was considered an insult, mostly because he’d seen Rose cry and knew exactly how bad an idea it was to drive it her to tears. She was his best friend. She was a kind and wonderful soul. God help you though if you made her cry. All her restraint and mercy flowed right out with her tears.

“I think I always had her with me,” Rose said. “She’s the me who can handle stuff like this. I just didn’t use to be able to call that part of me up so easily.”

“And I didn’t use to be able to hold my focus as well,” Rip Shot said. “Being aware of my ‘Rose side’ has definitely made me a better [Archer].”

“You sounded different there,” Jamal said. “Are there really two of you?”

“No,” Rip said and Rose continued, “This is all me.” Rip switched back in for “it’s just a matter of who I focus on being at any particular moment.” Rose finished up by asking, “Doesn’t Matt talk to you?”

“Not like that,” Jamal said and felt a strange ripple pass through gears.

“He hasn’t needed me to yet,” Matt Painting said.

Tessa

While a party of two suited Tessa just fine under the circumstances, she was forced to admit that it did present some issues. 

In theory those were manageable though. The numerical advantage the monster spawns were likely to have could be mitigated by simply avoiding the encounter for example. 

With neither of them wearing heavy armor, the detection radius of hostile creatures was a small as possible and with only two of them in the area there wasn’t supposed to be any penalty to their natural ability to move silently (and also very slowly). Lost Alice also had vision and hearing which were sharper than any creature which had any business being in a low level dungeon like the [Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]. Coupling that with the mini-map in the heads-up display, and the chance of anything sneaking up on them should have been effectively zero.

The glitch in that plan had come from Tessa. Tessa and her all too human eyes and ears and (most importantly) sense of balance.

In hindsight, she wasn’t even sure she’d tripped over anything more than her own two feet. One moment she was sneaking forward at her best speed though and the next she tumbled forwards, convinced for some reason that her foot had struck some kind of gelatinous slime.

The scream of surprise was a mistake. She admitted that immediately. An understandable mistake she felt, but still not the brightest move when one was attempting to get through an area which likely contained monsters in significant number who were also significantly stronger than she was.

“What happened?” Lisa asked silently on their private channel as she drew Tessa into one of the alcoves in the ornately carved walls.

“I tripped. Can you see anything there? It felt like I stepped into one of those little slime creatures.”

The hallway they were walking down was leading them away from where the others were supposed to be waiting for them. They’d picked it because it also looked like it would lead them around the area the [Formless Hunger] had invaded, and seemed to be clear of large concentrations of monsters.

Tessa had been intrigued by the work that had gone into the simple passageway. The whole thing was lit by a soft atmospheric glow that had the strength of a series of small candles despite there being no visible source for the illumination. Each alcove received a little more of the light than the stretches of hallway between them. 

With the amount of detail put into the miniature tableaus carved into the alcoves, Tessa was hard pressed to imagine the lighting designer hadn’t worked hand in hand with the crafters who created the carving. The scenes seemed to tell the story of the world’s creation, with each small patch capturing a unique event and each alcove being a single day containing hundreds of important moments.

From the alcoves they’d passed so far, it seemed that rather than seven days, the creation of the [Fallen Kingdoms] had taken years of incredible effort and been the work of far more than a single creator. 

And then, at some point, everything had fallen apart, and the beautiful carved hallways had become home to monsters.

“I don’t see anything,” Lisa said. “Can slimes phase through floors?”

“Not any of the normal ones,” Tessa said. She blinked trying to see more in the dim candlelight but as far as she could tell there was no sign of anything like one of the low level slimes she’d thought she was stepping on.

“It did feel like a slime,” Pillowcase said. “No acid burn or paralytic numbing to it though, so it would have to have been one of the lowest levels of slimes.”

“If you foot wet at all?” Lisa asked.

“No. The shoes are as dry as when I put them on,” Tessa said, surprised that her hand wasn’t covered in goop.

“We’ve got two choices then; move on and hope this was some kind of random glitch or we search around and see what we can find,” Lisa said.

“If we move on, we’ll have a better chance of getting to Rip and Matt before trouble finds them,” Tessa said, keeping a wary eye on the spot where she’d tripped. “But…”

“But if there is some kind of weird monster involved, we would be leading it right back to them.” Lisa sighed in a frustration which was all too familiar to Tessa.

Nothing was ever easy or simple.

“Can you see anything special about that spot?” Tessa asked, moving away from Lost Alice’s embrace to get a closer look.

“It’s just a normal, flat, section of…wait!” Despite Lost Alice’s vampiric reflexes, she still wasn’t fast enough to yank Tessa back before the portal formed in the air in front of her.

“Ok, this feels weird,” Tessa said with half of her body sticking through the rectangular of scintillating purple light which hung in the hallway in front of them.

“Are you ok!” Lisa asked, not letting go of the arm she’d grabbed onto.

“Yeah,” Tessa said, pulling herself back onto the near side of the portal and checking that her fingers and toes still seemed to be functional. “That just tingled. A lot.”

“What’s on the other side? Could you feel anything?” Lisa asked.

“It doesn’t go anywhere,” Tessa said, certain that was the truth, and completely unsure of where that certainty came from. “Not yet anyways.”

“What do you mean? Can you see something in it?” Lisa asked.

“No. It’s not in position. Here, let me do this.” Tessa reached out and push on the edge of the portal. Part of her expected her hand to pass through as it had before, but another part wasn’t surprised when the portal moved instead.

With a gentle shove from Tessa, the plane of purple light swung away from her like a door opening until it made contact with the wall in between two of the alcoves.

The first thing Tessa noticed in the room which appeared beyond the portal was the little tear drop shaped slime which was waiting for them. Then she noticed the books.

The endless shelves of books.

And the pot of steaming coffee which was waiting for them.

Rose

Snakes and blood drinking moths. Not exactly the kind of thing Rose would have guessed she would have been happy to be surrounded by. A lifetime ago, back before she logged in [Broken Horizons], Rose would have counted being swarmed by both sorts of creatures as the definition of a bad day.

Rip Shot didn’t try to suppress the giggle that escaped her lips. The old Rose had such a quaint and amusing idea of what a bad day was.

“Bipedal friend Rose, you may leave these to us,” Silkscrin said. Silkscrin was speaking in [Storm Tongue] so her words sounded like lightning tearing through clouds, but the meaning was crystal clear to Rose nonetheless.

It was nice to have Patrons who provided helpful gifts.

“It’s ok,” Rose said as the [Lightning Serpents] closed ranks to protect her from the swarm of [Gloom Drinkers] which descended on her party. “I’ve got this.”

As a [Lightning Archer], Rip had acquired a few new skills which were perfect for dealing with a large number of weak creatures. Unlike Matt and Lady Midnight, Rip didn’t need intense concentration to use her abilities either. She was perfectly capable of shooting arrows even with deadly moths swirling around her.

But Rose had a better idea.

“FOOF! Can you talk to these things?” Rose asked as she called her pet from the protective orb it had retreated to in response to the various terrors that had befallen them.

Unlike the [Lightning Serpents], FOOF could not communicate verbally. Rose guessed FOOF was as smart as a very clever animal but not quite fully sapient. Even lacking words though, FOOF was quite capable of commanding the attention of the attacking [Gloom Drinkers], first by emitting a high pitched whine that Rip’s [Tabbywile] ears could hear far better than Rose’s human ones could ever have managed.

[Gloom Drinkers] didn’t have the sort of facial structure to display confusion, but the sudden transformation of their high speed flight patterns into mostly stationary hovering spoke to the sort of puzzlement Rose had grown terrible used to since arrived in the [Fallen Kingdoms].

“What’s happening?” Lady Midnight asked, sounding as puzzled as the [Gloom Drinkers] were.

“FOOF is talking to them,” Rose said. “We don’t need to fight them.”

“FOOF?”

“She got a pet a little while ago,” Jamal said. “It’s like a baby [Gloom Drinker].”

“They’re listening to a baby?” Lady Midnight asked.

“FOOF is very persuasive,” Rose said. 

She knew FOOF was persuasive, in part, because FOOF’s level was linked to her own. Rose had noticed that the first time she’d leveled and wondered why a non-combat pet would have levels. It occurred to her that Pillowcase and Lost Alice had described the behavior of non-combat pets, but they hadn’t said specifically that [Lil Gloom Drinkers] couldn’t fight. 

Whether that was a change due to being in the game world for real or if even [Broken Horizons] had FOOF flagged as combat capable, Rose wasn’t sure, but what she did know was that since the [Gloom Drinkers] were all below level 5 and FOOF was ten levels higher than them, her pet could very likely solo the entire swarm.

Which also made FOOF’s commands a little more persuasive as far as the [Gloom Drinkers] were concerned. 

“Hostilities have ceased?” Silkscrin asked.

Rose chirped at FOOF, who responded with an acknowledging flutter as the [Gloom Drinkers] settled down on the various nooks and crannies of the rough corridor which could act as perches for them.

“Yeah, I think we’re good,” Rose said and then watched FOOF perform a rather intricate pantomime of wing flutters and body bobs.

It wasn’t exactly a language but it managed to convey a fairly detailed narrative none the less.

At least to Rose and Rip.

Everyone else looked baffled.

“FOOF says they’re running from the [Formless Hunger] too,” Rose said, acting as translator. “It’s taken one of the exits out, but they could hear it coming and escaped to hear before it could follow them. They thought we were more of the [Disjoined].”

“They know what the [Disjoined] are?” Jamal asked. He believed her, because he was awesome, but he was still struggling to accept a reality he didn’t seem to have any connection to.

“Not as [Disjoined] exactly,” Rose said. “I’m translating a bit there. FOOF basically called them ‘Wrong Scratchy Ones’, but I know that’s the same as the [Disjoined Ones] we’ve seen.”

“Do they know where the [Disjoined] ones came from?” Lady Midnight asked. “Is the [Formless Hunger] burping them out or is it calling to them?

There was an exchange of ultrasonic screeches between FOOF and a few of the [Gloom Drinkers] before FOOF reported back to Rose.

“FOOF says the [Disjoined] are being drawn to the [Formless Hunger]. The [Gloom Drinkers] saw enough to ‘fill a tunnel’, which I think is a dozen or so?”

“And they’re definitely working with the Hunger?” Jamal asked. “Cause last time we saw them, they were kind of in a ‘destroy all the things’ mode.”

FOOF bobbed a few times in answer to the question.

“It seems like they are,” Rose said. “The Hunger had stopped growing before it met the [Disjoined]. Then it sounds like it gave them orders and pulled back?”

“Orders?” Jamal said. “How does something like that give orders? And how do things like the [Disjoined] take orders?”

“They’re related,” Lady Midnight said, a note of creeping dread entering her voice. “We saw that in [Sky’s Edge]. They might even be the same thing.”

“That would be good then, right?” Jamal asked. “I mean we beat the [Disjoined] before, so if the Hunger’s made of the same stuff then we should be able to beat it too?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lady Midnight said, her gaze distant as a terrible thought grew behind her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked.

“Why would the Hunger stop growing?” Lady Midnight asked. “What was it afraid of?”

“Can that thing even be afraid?” Jamal asked.

Lady Midnight’s terrible though began to grow inside Rose too.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s afraid of the person who stood up to it. The one it couldn’t kill.”

“And now it’s got minions to send after Tessa,” Lady Midnight said, giving voice to the eight worst words Rose had heard since she’d arrived in the [Fallen Kingdoms].

Lisa

One nice thing about being full was that Lost Alice didn’t feel like devouring the comparatively frail woman who was nestled in her armors. Lisa appreciated that, and appreciated that no matter how strongly she leaned into being Alice, her ‘vampire instincts’ would never force her to harm someone she cared about. It was still nice though to feel the soft warmth of Tessa and not be distracted with thoughts of “Yum”.

Well, not “yummy blood” at least.

“How long do you think the others will be content to sit tight for?” she asked, not wanting to know the answer, but aware that it was something they had to take into account.

“Forever and ever,” Tessa said, a tired, dreamy haze blanketing her words.

After what they’d been through, Lisa would have been fine with that. Her body might have been healed but Tessa’s radical restoration procedure hadn’t included a dose of amnesia to help Lisa forget what losing a limb had felt like.

“Or they’re already on the move,” Tessa said.

“I can’t see any of them on the local map,” Lisa said. “But I think I saw the area they got blasted to on the one we got from Vixali.”

“Do you think they’ll try to head for us?” Tessa asked, turning in Lost Alice’s arms as though to rise.

Lisa didn’t hold her back. Much. The little tug was just meant to indicate that she didn’t need to move right away. It wasn’t Lisa’s fault that she wasn’t used to having the strength of a vampiric adventurer.

“We could let them find us I guess,” Tessa said, only slightly crushed up against Lost Alice.

Alice repressed her sigh and relaxed her arms so that Tessa could escape if she wanted to. Tessa didn’t seem entirely happy with that, and made no move to get away.

“We probably shouldn’t let them do that,” Lisa said, frowning at the thought of the kind of trouble Rip and Matt could get up to by wandering randomly through a dungeon.

“Not after all this,” Tessa said. “And not with the Hunger still out there and growing.”

“Could you tell how fast it was expanding?” Lisa asked, a chill creeping into her knees and knuckles at the thought of encountering any more patches of sentient static.

“I think we can circumnavigate it,” Tessa said. “And I don’t think it’s going to try hunting for me again.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be able to hunt you in the first place though, was it?” Lisa asked. “I thought it was supposed to be something like a zone of damage, not an actual creature.”

“It wasn’t even that to start with,” Tessa said. “The thing we first encountered in [Sky’s Edge] wasn’t even real, if that makes any sense.”

“It really ate that town, so no, it kind of doesn’t.”

“Picture it like something from another game,” Tessa said. “The [Fallen Kingdoms] have a lot of things in them but they don’t have Pac-Man. He’s not ‘real’ here, according to the metaphysics of this world. If he shows up anyways, there’s this friction with the rules which make up this place. It’s like this reality doesn’t have capacity of hold a two dimensional infinitely hungry yellow circle that can be killed by ghosts, so it glitches out, and none of the regular rules for creatures wind up getting applied to it.”

“So the Hunger is from somewhere else? Can we kick it back there?” Lisa asked.

“That’s the hard part. I don’t think it’s ‘from’ anywhere. I think it’s more like an untethered concept. Or maybe all that’s left of a reality that doesn’t exist any longer.”

“That’s pretty esoteric. How could you know that?” Lisa had wondered what had happened to Tessa after she vanished from Pillowcase at [Sky’s Edge], she just wasn’t sure if it was something Tessa could easily talk about.

 “I think it’s from my class?” Tessa sounded like she was trying the explanation out to see if it fit. “I’m not clear on how I got it, the class that is, but I think it’s supposed to be able to deal with things like the [Formless Hunger].”

“You can fight it now?” Lisa wasn’t sure if she was overjoyed at the idea of the Hunger being defeatable, or terrified at that though that Tessa would have to be the one to face it. Possibly alone.

“Not yet,” Tessa said. “I’m still a baby [Void Speaker]. I don’t think I have any attacks yet. And it’s probably still got a huge level advantage on me. But maybe someday? Yeah. I think if I can hit the level cap, a max level [Void Speaker] should be able to deal with something like that.”

“We need to get you to a power leveler then,” Lisa said. “Maybe we should head for Glimmerglass first?”

“I think it’ll be easier for her to reach us,” Tessa said. “Aside from the Hunger, nothing in here should be too dangerous for her.”

“The smart play might be to let her collect all of us,” Lisa said, not unhappy at the prospect of needing to wait for a rescue in this particular case.

“I could live with that,” Tessa said, “But you know Rip and Matt won’t sit still for that long.”

Lisa wanted to protest, but she saw too much of herself in Rip to honestly contest Tessa’s claim.

“Lady Midnight could keep them safe,” Lisa said, trying a different, and somewhat reasonable tack.

“I know,” Tessa said. “But I want to do it.”

Lisa had to admit defeat in the face of those small words.

“So do I,” she said and helped Tessa rise.

“Thank you,” Tessa said. “I’m not sure how safe we’ll be, but I’ll try to do what I can to help, ok?”

“You saved me from a monster from beyond time and space, you’ve already ‘helped’ more than anyone else possibly could,” Lisa said. “If we run into something, let me handle it. You just stay focus on saving yourself for a change. Understood? Lost Alice may only be a healer, but we’re not about to let any of our loved ones get torn to ribbons when we can just heal tank it instead.”

Lisa saw a flash of surprise pass over Tessa’s face before Tessa clamped her jaw shut and responded with a silent nod and a barely suppressed smile of absolute delight.

Jamal

Jamal was following Rose. They were supposed to stay put and wait for the others to find them but that plan had gone out the window the moment the [Lightning Serpents] had appeared.

Jamal wasn’t surprised. Rose was involved. Plans general didn’t do too well when she was around, and since coming to the [Fallen Kingdoms] she’d been more herself than ever before. Almost like “Rip Shot” was the elemental version of Rose-ness. Or maybe just what Rose had always wished she could be.

He couldn’t say quite the same thing about Matt Painting. The idea of being a steam punk style clockwork spell caster hadn’t exactly been a roll he’d been dying to play. Although since they’d likely ‘died’ as far as their earthly lives were concerned, he had to admit that being Matt Painting, [Metal Mechanoid] and [Dream Spinner] wasn’t bad as an afterlife.

He wondered what his Imam would have said about that line of thought. Probably something insightful. Jamal hadn’t had much time to learn the faith he was trying to practice but in the short time he’d been able to seek out an education he’d been drawn to the simple clarity and kindness he’d been shown. He still wasn’t sure anyone had all the answers, but support and acceptance had been too rare in his life to not have an impact when they were offered freely.

Which, he knew, was why he was trotting along after Rose. They’d been friends forever. Without her, he was pretty sure he have had some kind of breakdown already. She’d been there when his dad had been killed in a stupid car accident, and she’d still been there years later when his mother had started dating again.

If there was anything Jamal was thankful for it was that he was much better at choosing his friends than his mother was. Rose respected him and care about his well being and was never violent. 

Or at least not violent towards him.

Rip had proven that Rose was more than capable of high quality violence when the need arose. Somehow though, blowing up giant monster bugs didn’t feel like real violence. They weren’t people at all and they were intent on nothing except tearing Matt’s party apart. If anything blowing them up felt cathartic. 

That was probably part of the reason it felt so strange to be jogging along with the [Lightning Serpents]. To Jamal and Matt’s ears, it didn’t sound like they could talk at all. They only made burst of sound that sounded like sandpaper being dragged over steel. Despite that Rose was happily carrying on a conversation with them as she jogged down the corridor the [Lightning Serpents] claimed would lead them back to where the refugees from [Sky’s Edge] had gathered.

“It’s not uncommon for characters to earn fluency in different languages,” Lady Midnight said. “But that’s usually with the other playable races. I’ve never heard of someone talking to monsters before.”

Without missing a beat or turning from the half dozen electrified snakes who were scuttling along with their heads at her shoulder height, Rose said, “They’re not monsters. They just don’t normally find many non herpa-forms who they can talk to.”

“Herpa-forms?” Jamal whispered on a private channel.

“Snake people I guess?” Lady Midnight whispered back.

The [Lightning Serpents] had rolled into the small area Rose, Jamal and Lady Midnight had selected as their ‘camp’ and before anyone had started their combat animations, Rose had been all up in the middle of them, chatting like they were old friends.

Apparently they were fleeing from the [Formless Hunger], much like everything mobile in the areas it had invaded. When they found that a “bipedal” could talk their language – or the “language of the storm”, Jamal wasn’t exactly sure what that meant – they were delighted to take her offer of protection and company. 

They knew the dungeon’s layout, and the adventurers were better fighters so it seemed like a good match for a traveling party. 

Aside from the part where they were doing the exact opposite of what they’d agreed to do, but Jamal reasoned that Tessa and Alice would be fairly forgiving if it meant they were all reunited sooner and with some new allies.

And hopefully none of them were snake-phobic. 

“Think we should tell the others about this?” Jamal asked Lady Midnight privately. He already knew what Rose’s answer would be, but getting a second opinion seemed like a wise move.

“Maybe when we’re closer to camp, or if something starts to go wrong,” Lady Midnight said. “They don’t have our precise location anyways so there’s no need for them to worry yet.”

“Yeah, the last thing we need is for anyone else to run into a trap or the Hunger trying to get to us.”

Sometimes Jamal felt cursed. It was like whatever universe he was in, there was always some force that was out to punish him for whatever he said. He knew it wasn’t true. He knew people weighed negative events more strongly than positive ones, and correlations were mistaken for causation because people really wanted to believe they were more in control of their lives than they ever could be.

All that said though, it still sucked when, immediately after he talked about running into a trap, they did.

One moment they were jogging down a corridor and the next there were [Gloom Moths] all around them, wings fluttering everywhere as dozens of them descended on the surprised party.

Jamal brought his arms up to cast a spell and took a mouth to the face, completely disrupting his casting.

There were too many of them.

He wasn’t going to be able to get even the simplest spell off.

Tessa

It was time to get moving. Tessa knew that, but she really didn’t want to. Not when the alternative was to stay where she was, wrapped up in Lost Alice’s arms.

“It sounds like we’ve got a plan,” Lisa said, addressing the others on the chat line as much as Tessa who was close enough to hear her actual voice.

They were still more or less sprawled on the ground of the room they’d been blasted into. A tiny, but surprisingly well lit cavern which had definitely been carved by someone with a plan for the space. The door at the far end was proof of that.

The closed door.

Tessa suspected that would be a problem, but it was a problem for a Tessa who’d decided to give up on Lost Alice’s soft and chilly embrace and that Tessa clearly had her priorities scrambled so she deserved problems like that.

“It’s not a great plan, but it’ll should keep them out of trouble. Hopefully,” Lisa said, limiting that comment to the private channel she shared with Tessa.

“It’s weird that I’m starting to think of Rip and Matt as our responsibility isn’t it?” Tessa said, giving voice to the thought as it stumbled  to the forefront of her exhausted mind.

“Probably,” Lisa said. “But I’m doing the same thing, and compared to everything else that’s happening I’m not sure adopting a pair of lost little fledglings really even cracks into the ‘Top 100 Strangest Things I Did Today’ list.”

“Now I’m picturing Matt as a little duck inside that armor.” Tessa laughed, needing the moment of levity more than she’d known.

“That would be adorable. Sitting in a little chair, with a little headset on, tapping buttons with his bill,” Lisa said. She hadn’t pulled her arms away yet and Tessa saw no reasons to bring this fact to her attention.

“Oh god, I’m going to trying to peek inside his armor every time we see him now,” Tessa said, shaking her head.

“What is in there?” Lisa asked.

“Gears I think?” Tessa said. “Pillowcase is full of enchanted fluff basically, and I think that sort of thematic construction is how all the [Artifax] are put together.”

“Was it weird being filled with stuffing?” Lisa asked.

“It probably should have been, but that was what Pillowcase had always known and since it felt normal to her, it felt normal to me. How about – I wanted to say ‘being filled with blood’ but I want it on the record that I realized how stupid that was before the words left my mouth.”

“You probably meant ‘being a vampire’, and it’s pretty much the same I think,” Lisa said. “Lost Alice has been a vampire for a while so she’s used it. Mostly. It’s a little weird for her still, so I get that too.”

“I’m glad it’s not too freaky for you,” Tessa said. “This place is hard enough, but at least whatever mind-body magic we got whammied with seems to be handling acclimating us pretty well.”

“So is this your real body? Or, I mean, is it Tessa’s real body. I know the other one was Pillowcase’s real body. Sorry Pillow,” Lisa said.

Tessa looked at her hands and glanced down her chest and legs. Everything seemed more or less what she was used to seeing in the mirror. She even had on one of her nice T-shirts.

Except it wasn’t the one she’d been wearing when she was drawn into the [Fallen Kingdoms]. 

Neither were the sweatpants the ones she’d been wearing. She had a similar question about her socks but they were non-descript enough that she couldn’t be sure.

“Yeah, this is me,” she said, feeling just a bit self conscious in the arms of the artistically perfect vampire.

“I like your shirt,” Lisa said, pulling back at last to get a better look at Tessa. 

The shirt in question had a top line which read: “1,000,000 HP” and a line below it in much tinier print which said: “(not really but it scares the literate monsters)”.

“Thanks,” Tessa said, not sure how to read the vampiric gaze which seemed to be drinking her in. “I don’t think it’ll do much to stop any of the monsters here though.”

“Yeah, these robes I’m in are probably a ten times as sturdy and I’m still a ‘squishy’,” Lisa said. “Do you have anything else you could equip? You’ll need some shoes if nothing else.”

“I don’t think so,” Tessa said and reached over to the bag which was hanging at her side. “I didn’t get a chance to pack I’m afraid.”

Reaching into the inventory bag was weird and unsettling and so far below getting blasted out of existence that Tessa wasn’t even consciously aware of how strange it felt. Her hand plunged into the extra-planar space and came back with a pair of sturdy boots in her exact size as well as a tunic, breeches, and cloak which was almost as soft as Lost Alice’s embrace.

“Where did you get those?” Lisa asked, running her finger down the intricate stitchwork on the cloak’s collar.

“They were in the bag, and, they’re mine. Like, I can feel they’re bound to me already. But I never had magic clothes before?” Tessa said, worried for a moment about what sort of contract she might be agreeing to if she put on her new garb.

“I think these are really only for you too,” Lisa said. “I called up the stats on this cloak and the only class that can equip it is ‘[VS]’.”

“[Void Speaker]? But that’s not even a real class in the game?” Tessa said.

“Apparently it is now,” Lisa said. “And maybe it was before too?”

“What makes you say that?” Tessa asked, feeling the comforting heft of the tunic. Even without seeing the stats, she was sure the fabric, or more precisely the spells woven in it, would protect her from lesser forms of damage. Things like minor claw attacks, peasant arrows, machine gun fire. The easy stuff.

“This is a [Heritage] piece,” Lisa said. “They introduced those to the game a few years ago. It’ll grow with you as you level. It’s basically the best stuff you can wear until you hit the level cap.”

Tessa knew that was good news, but the implication that there was someone else who held the [Void Speaker] class before her seemed ominous. She was only just learning what she could do and she’d already fractured a god’s soul off someone. What might a max level [Void Speaker] be capable of?

Rose

The blast from the [God Soul] had propelled Rose and Jamal and Lady Midnight upwards. It was strange though since even with as high as they’d been shot – and to Rose it felt like they’d been thrown a mile or two upwards – they’d still landed within the confines of the [Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]. What was stranger was that the stone and earth they’d been blasted through showed no signs of being affected by their passage.

“So did things like this happen in the game version of [Broken Horizons]?” Rose asked. 

“Things like what?” Lady Midnight asked. She was fishing around in her inventory and came out with a small milky orb after a little searching. 

“The [God Soul] thing,” Rose said. “And the [Formless Hunger] and all the stuff we’ve been running into.”

Rose waved her hands to take in the world around them, but her thoughts were centered on the [God Soul]. She’d felt the power that Tessa had held and she had a clear and specific idea of what she would have done with it.

After saving Lost Alice of course.

She couldn’t fault Tessa for that. 

Lost Alice had to come first.

But if she could have maybe only used half the [God Soul] to heal Lost Alice? Rose shivered at the idea of what the [Lord of Storms] could have done with half a [God Soul].

Live again maybe? Even if it was only for a little while, that might have been enough to inspire the belief required to bring them back to life all the way.

“Yeah, we’ve had things like that before,” Lady Midnight said. “Not a [God Soul] specifically, but the high end gear gets pretty esoteric. The developers weren’t shy about hyperbole early on and with each expansion they had to add stuff that was that much more powerful than what we’d gotten in the previous one.”

“So we could find something like a [God Soul] again?” Rose asked, wheels turning in her mind to slot in the “[Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]” and the fact that they’d already met a god with the possibility that any further deific artifacts were likely laying somewhere relatively nearby.

“My other character’s an archer and she’s got a [Bifrost Bow],” Lady Midnight said. “When she needs to go somewhere she can summon a literal rainbow to teleport her there. And one of her arrows is called [Ra’s Wrath] which is, basically, a nuclear bomb. The flavor text says is strikes with the ‘fire of the sun’, which means a big ball of nuclear fusion.”

“How would you ever fire a thing like that?” Jamal asked.

“It’s got a limited area of effect,” Lady Midnight said. “Anything inside the area gets nuked, but if you’re standing two inches outside the area you’re fine. Also it’s only usable in cutscenes or for scripted events, so it’s basically just a mechanics cheat. Otherwise you’d be able to grief other players a little too easily.”

“Where do you get that?” Rose asked, her eyes alight with the prospect of being able to nuke enemies with her bow.

“One of the second tier raids, [Well of Infinity],” Lady Midnight said. “It’s one of the 64 man raids though and competition for the loot is ridiculous. I had to grind that one for a year and a half before I was able to get a drop. God, the stories I could tell about that whole mess!”

“Why don’t you?” Jamal suggested. “We’re supposed to wait here for the others to show up right? Might as well learn what the game was all about. Some of that stuff might still be true in this place.”

“Well in that case you probably want to hear about the technical stuff,” Lady Midnight said. “What kind of tactics we used and that sort of thing. All the guild drama ‘s hopefully a thing of the past.”

“Why would it be?” Rose asked.

“Because now what we’re doing actually does matter,” Lady Midnight said. “Raiding in the game was an exercise in perseverance, basically trading your time to gear up your character so you’d be judged as ‘worthy to hang with the cool kids’. Here though? I’m all too happy to let the cool kids throw themselves in the meat grinder fights.”

“Is that what the other players are doing now?” Rose asked.

“A lot of the ones I know,” Lady Midnight said. “Well, a lot of the ones I like. I know there’s a bunch who decided to scamper off and do their own thing. And a few who just didn’t want to fight at all, which is fair I think.”

“Yeah, this isn’t what they signed up for when they logged in, is it?” Jamal said.

“I mean, it kind of is, though, isn’t it?” Rose asked. “If I’d known I could log into a real fantasy world, and be like this?” She gestured to Rip Shot’s whole body. “I would have dove in here as soon as I could click the mouse!”

“Yeah, but some of them probably have jobs and stuff,” Jamal said.

“And bills,” Lady Midnight said. “I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to pay my rent with gold pieces.”

“So why go back?” Rose asked.

“We’ll have to, won’t we?” Lady Midnight said. “Or…”

“Or we can stay here,” Rose said. “I know Rip wouldn’t mind us staying together. Her and I that is. We were made for each other.”

“Same for me and Matt,” Jamal said.

“What about your families though?” Lady Midnight asked.

“I’m thinking we’re going to adopt Lost Alice and Pillowcase,” Rose said. “And anyone who else wants in.”

“It’d be nice to have a good family for a change,” Jamal said.

Interlude – Grunvan

Grunvan wasn’t anything special as [Goblins] went. Average height, average strength, average smarts. She’d lived an average life and been, on average, ok with that. 

As a kid, the “call to adventure” had been something to knocked on other people’s doors, usually with disastrous results. She’d gone into the not-at-all lucrative career of wagon-driving with her eyes open to both the risks she was taking and the one’s she was stepping well out of her path to avoid.

[Wagon Town] was a big enough city that the roads leading to it were generally secure. The “big money” (for extremely modest values of “big”) among wagon routes were the ones which lead through places like the [Fire Fields] or the [Cryptmist Woods]. That a fair percentage of drivers on those routes didn’t live long enough to claim their big pay days was enough to convince Grunvan that she was happier with the common routes doing either regular deliveries within town or out to the constellation of small villages and communities which [Wagon Town] extensively with.

Despite her life long commitment to making sensible and safe choices though, Grunvan still found herself huddling behind an giant shield she could barely lift, clad in scraps of armor which showed in too many places where they’d failed to protect their previous wearer.

“They’ve got to be sending help right?” Argwin said after she snuck a glance over the hastily assembled battlements they’d finished throwing up an hour before.

Grunvan was reasonably sure Agwin was not looking for an honest opinion on that matter. None of the thirty or so goblins on their section of the defensive earthworks wanted to be where they were, and none of them really expected anyone else to throw themselves into the proverbial frying pan. Not with the horde of nightmares that had rolled up and begun constructing a camp right outside the small village of [Apple Plate].

There were unbelievable reports that the whole world was under attack by monsters from beyond the stars. Unbelievable except for the part where a few hundred yards away there was a giant horde of monsters from beyond the stars waiting to destroy [Apple Plate], [Wagon Town], and probably every other goblin town they could get their talons and tentacles on. 

Grunvan could imagine a lot of things, but imagining the armed forces from any of the other nations choosing to lend a forgettable little village like [Apple Plate] a hand was not one of them.

“Sure,” she said. “The [Silver Spears Gryphon Brigade] could still make it here before trouble starts.”

It wasn’t a lie if no one was going to believe it.

“I just don’t get why they’re waiting,” Argwin said, clutching her spiked war club as though a better grip would matter against the [Trainsaw Transport] that was fueling up on the other side of the apple orchard.

“They’re definitely afraid of these mighty thews,” Grunvan said and flexed her bicep for effect.

Flexing did give her arm a little more definition. Average strength for someone who spent their life hauling crates and fighting with ornery [Gum Lizards] was enough to swing a club with a decent amount of force. Against an indecently powerful enemy though it wasn’t going to mean anything. 

Argwin groaned out short laugh.

“You can take that big spikey thing then,” she said, gesturing to the [Trainsaw Transport].

“Oh, does that mean I can leave all the littler ones to you then?” Grunvan asked.

“Sure. That seems fair. You smash that spikey thing to bits and we’ll beat up the other ten million or so beasties out there. Typical wagon driver.”

Argwin’s smile wasn’t a sign that her fear was banished, only that she’d managed to shove it over so she could coexist with it.

“Just because we know how to take the jobs that let us sit on our butts most of the day is no reason for you to be jealous,” Grunvan said. “We can’t all be bakers who get up at the crack of dawn and then flounce off before lunch to spend the rest of the day writing bad love poems.”

“You’re just jealous you never got one,” Argwin said.

“Like I’d ever need one? You read them all to me!”

“Ah, not all of them,” Argwin said and let out of a long and slow sigh. “You know I think I had a really good one in me today.”

“Save it for tomorrow,” Grunvan said.

Not that there was going to be a tomorrow. At least not for either of them.

Grunvan had answered the call to arms because the news had reached [Apple Plate] of what had happened to [Stone Puddle], the village on the side of the far hill. 

For whatever alien reason they might have, the [Consortium of Pain] had chosen to portal their force in and around [Stone Puddle]. There hadn’t been any negotiations. The Consortium had simply arrived, corralled everyone they could, and thrown them into some kind of conversion machine.

The goblins who walked out were hollow eyes and drained of all color. As far as the survivors who’s escaped could tell, the converted were still alive, but it wasn’t the sort of life Grunvan ever wanted to experience. Better to resist with everything she had, even if all she had to resist with was very little.

Grunvan knew she wasn’t anything special, but her world had become one that needed everyone to save it, even if they could only do a little bit.

Interlude – Gabriel Santiago

Gabriel never had any luck. The whole world was exploding with the news that some “gamer rapture” was happening and he was stuck playing the wrong game.

“Teddy’s saying he read it’s all a hoax,” Luna said as the two of them banked in towards the Crimson Empire’s asteroid mining installation. 

Gabriel watched on the screen as the particle battery emplacements popped up from around the base’s perimeter as Luna’s faster fighter drew into range.

“So, you’re saying it’s definitely not a hoax then?” 

He fired a shield recharge at Luna’s ship to help her weather the barrage of fire and cranked his speed down to a sustainable combat velocity.

“One hundred percent real,” Luna said, as she danced her fighter in to score their first solid hit on the mining platform. “I mean given Teddy’s track record, it’s gotta be right?”

“Given the websites Teddy reads? Yeah, no way it’s not real, even if it’s ridiculous.”

“Can you imagine though? It sounds there’s like a hundred thousand people who all got swooped up. Like one second they’re playing and then bam, sucked right into the game.”

“This was their launch day wasn’t it? I bet it’s a lot more than a hundred thousand,” Gabriel said, though the idea of even a hundred thousand people doing anything was hard to picture.

“I think it was. That is a lot of people suddenly vanishing. I mean Crystal Stars has, what, a half million concurrent users? If we all went poof can you imagine the havoc that would cause?”

Gabriel wanted to say something slick. Something about how he would go poof with her any day, except not excruciatingly pathetic. Since he felt like he’d been born without any slick genes at all, he instead opted to engage with what Luna was saying.

“I know Andy works traffic control at La Guardia and I think there’s a bunch of others on his team that do too. Bet it wouldn’t be easy landing planes with three quarters of your staff vanishing into thin air.”

The mining base on screen launched a cluster of automated fighters as the last of its defensive turrets fell before Luna and Gabriel’s combined fire.

“He doesn’t play at work does he?” Luna asked.

“He claims he doesn’t, but I’ve seen him on checking his auctions out pretty much throughout the day sometimes.”

“Must be nice to not have to worry about getting fired,” Luna said.

“Oh, I think he should be worried, he just doesn’t.”

“That sounds like Andy,” Luna said. “How about you? You said you had a big project coming up didn’t you? I didn’t know if I’d see you on tonight?”

“I got ‘Part One’ of the big project knocked out already. It was just rough drafts really. ‘Part Two’ is taking those to a polished state but I can’t do that until the customer picks out the ones they like.”

“So you’ll have time for the raid on the Emperor’s Lost Throne tomorrow night then?” Luna asked, a note of joy in her voice which Gabriel hoped was a good sign.

He knew he should just tell her how he was feeling. That getting to play with her was one of the high points of his week and that he was crushing on her pretty hard. Unfortunately there were enough douchey guys like Teddy who he could be confused with if he presented things poorly and the last thing he wanted to do was make someone he liked feel uncomfortable.

Also there was the small factor that they lived three thousand miles apart, so it wasn’t like a confession would lead to them casually getting together for coffee to see where things went. He figured he had time to take it slow and see whether this would be a nice friendship or something more.

He didn’t have as much time as he imagined, but that was true of so many people that he was hardly unique on that count.

“Yeah, even if the customer gets back to us and wants a rush order I can push them off for a night. I mean you can’t rush greatness right?”

Luna laughed as they turned to face the mining base’s final defense, a Techno-Organic War Beast from the Old Centinium. 

“Do they usually buy that?” she asked, charging her shields and burning a cooldown ability to reload her missile bays instantly.

“The customers? Oh hell no,” Gabriel said, moving his ship ahead of hers so he’d be able to tank the War Beast’s heavy hits. “My boss is cool though. She knows we need down time or the staff gets cranky so she charges absurd rates for overtime work.”

“She sounds like my boss,” Luna said. “I must have gone through more than a dozen jobs before I got here and now I will stop working for Shanti about four days after I die.”

“That is the kind of praise you do not hear for bosses very often,” Gabriel said.

“I mean, she’s nice to us. She treats us like people. It’s not exactly hard,” Luna said. “Which I can’t say is true about this War Beast. Think we’re up for tackling it?”

“Probably not,” Gabriel said. “We should really have a full team for this.”

“Think we can jet before it evolves to its second form?”

“Maybe? We can definitely get away before it goes Third Form, but our repair bills will be ugly.”

“Eh, I’m pretty flush with cred,” Luna said. “And I’ve got a backup fighter I’ve been meaning to try out. Why don’t we give it a shot?”

That was one of the reasons Gabriel like Luna so much. She’d taken the words right out of his mouth. Flying through the vastness of space in Crystal Stars, he’d run into a lot of other players, but Luna was the first one who seemed to have the same instincts he did. Not just for when to attack or what to engage, but smaller things like how she flew and the locals she liked to hang out in while waiting for the game to finish automated tasks like ship repair or bot construction. He didn’t have to explain why the planet of floating pink octopi was relaxing. She just got it.

“Why don’t we indeed?” Gabriel said and queued up his reserve shielding as he powered in towards the War Beast.

The War Beast which was already morphing into a new form.

“How is it changing already? We haven’t even damaged it yet?” Luna asked.

“Stealth update?” Gabriel was sure he would have heard of one if it had happened but what he was seeing on the screen wasn’t anything like the War Beasts he’d encountered in the game before.

In place of the black and grey steel threads the War Beasts were constructed of, slivers of white and blue static were tearing through the creatures superstructure.

“That does not look right at all,” he got to say before an overcharged plasma beam lanced out from the mutating War Beast.

Gabriel was correct. It was not right at all. What was even less right to his eyes were the motes of iridescent light which began rising from his hands as his fighter on the screen disintegrated.

Interlude – Jillian Wong

Jillian was old enough that any new chaos which came into her life had to compete with a wide array of prior calamities and crises before it could surprise or unsettle her. She’d watched the world go through many changes, and suffer many tragedies, living through some of them more personally but aware of so many others which she would never even heard of in an age before the world was as connected as it had become. 

As she typed furiously at her laptop, she prayed in a silent shriek that the connection she had spent a lifetime developing would be enough. 

Something had taken her daughter and son. 

Not someone.

She’d read the news, she’d talked with the local members of the software studio at the heart of the abductions, she’d even spoke to a few of the players who hadn’t yet been abducted. She knew the shape of the problem which lay before her, though she still found it impossible to sound out its depth.

The total number of abductees was unknown,or at least unreleased, but even low estimates placed it in the hundreds of thousands of missing.

The world was caught vacillating between the various stages of grief. The usual band of idiots were denouncing the issue as a hoax and the those who sought a comfortable answer which would demand nothing of themselves were as eager to rush to that banner as ever. 

Anger took many forms, as did bargaining, but by far the leading response was depression, with images of bereft families leading to the numb shadow of uncaring which was easily mistaken for acceptance.

Jillian’s answer didn’t fall into any of those categories though. She wasn’t willing to bargain to get her kids back. She wasn’t willing to deny their absence or waste her time on anger, or depression. As for acceptance? Jillian would never accept the loss of her children in so impossible a manner.

She’d given them both permission to play their game. She’d made an account with them so that she could understand where they were choosing to spend their time. The thought that they’d been somehow gobbled up by magic computer pixels was ridiculous but she’d seen it happen. Arguing against it as being unreasonable wasn’t going to bring them back.

Which meant, she had to find what would bring them back.

And to do that she needed data.

Data was Jillian’s speciality. She’d been on the front lines of the data mining revolution for the better part of her adult life. Where her children played games and were far more socially adept than she was, Jillian had focused on absorbing every scrap of information she could on the nature of information.

When and where people disappeared. How long it took after their characters were slain in the game. Where the first person had fallen and where the main concentrations of those lost to the game had been. All those data points and more could be rendered down into something meaningful. Something that would reveal the shape of the problem before them.

That was Jillian’s version of faith, and to the extent that it sustained her and drove her towards a true understanding of the the worlds she inhabited, it was good.

Interlude – Yawlorna

Survival was never guaranteed. Yawlorna knew that. Being stranded in a realm which viewed herself and her shipmates as “demons” meant the locals were likely to stab first and ask questions never. Yawlorna had been considered issuing a similar order to her patrollers, but in retrospect she couldn’t express how glad she was that she hadn’t.

“No more signs of the Consortium troopers,” Balegritz said.

“Did we get to the stragglers first or did they?” Yawlorna asked.

“We did,” Balegritz said. “It could have gone bad. Real bad. But it didn’t, so call it a win for us I guess?”

“Maybe a win, but it wasn’t our doing,” Yawlorna said. 

“Be fair there boss, you were the one who got us out,” Balegritz said.

They were walking along a corridor carved to perfect regularity. It was farther than either of them had even ventured into the [Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]. Farther and more dangerous. 

But they didn’t have any better options.

“We’ve lost too many of the crew,” Yawlorna said, letting her features sag into the weariness she kept carefully hidden from those who were looking to her from answers.

Balegritz looked to her as a leader too, but it was different with him. They’d studied together. He knew she wasn’t the natural commander the others seemed to imagine she was.

With what little command skill she believed she possessed, Yawlorna knew she needed to keep up the illusion of competency. Her crew’s morale was built upon it and if that disintegrated, they’d never make it home.

 “Yeah, we have,” Balegritz said. “But you know it’d be a hell of a lot more if you hadn’t kept us all together right?”

His words were true, but it didn’t make accepting the all the missing faces in her ranks any easier.

“You’re doing a great job, really,” Balegritz said. “Nobody expected us to wind up in a situation like this. Weird other worlds and the Consortium breathing down our necks? When did that ever come up in training, right?”

“There was probably a lecture on it somewhere in there,” Yawlorna said. “I know I slept through a few of them.”

“You and me both,” Balegritz said. “Point is though that you were the one who got us connected with the adventurers. And if we hadn’t started working with them, those Kremmer’s Razer’s guys would have torn us all apart. I mean you heard how they laughing before they went down into the pit. They knew were here. If they hadn’t thought there was something more valuable down there they would have split up and had a headcount contest with our skulls.”

The thought had haunted Yawlorna since she’d overheard the Consortium commandos pillaging the remnants of her crew’s camp. Ten minutes later and the message wouldn’t have arrived in time. Ten minutes later and Yawlorna was certain down to her bones that everyone she knew would have become nothing more than trophies for a pack of soulless killers, no matter how hard, or smart, or lucky they fought. 

There was movement up ahead, the barest hint of which sent panic racing down Yawlorna’s limbs, until the figure stepped into full view.

Yalworna suspected she should have been worried when the figure turned out to be a skeleton but his manner and voice were too disarming to place him in even the top fifty threats she’d faced since their arrival on the [High Beyond]

“Welcome my new friends,” Mister Pendant said. “I’m afraid my shop is sadly short of wares at the moment, but you are more than welcome to share our hearth.”

“Strength in numbers right?” Balegritz said.

“Numbers bring strength, but caring for one another is how we truly survive,” Mister Pendant said.

Interlude – Way

Oblivion’s Daughter looked around, carefully taking in her surroundings. The key point was to be sure there were no outside observers. No monsters, no adventurers, sure, but also no trace of the [Formless Hunger] or any of the other Remnants. She wasn’t in any danger from them but Oblivion’s Daughter, Obby, was a role she was enjoying.

“You’re low level!” Jin said. “You really are trying out something new!”

“I told you I was going to attack this one from a different angle,” Way said, allowing ‘Obby’ to fade away for a moment.

“Hey,” Jin said, sliding her hands into Way’s, “I think it’s awesome you can still surprise me.”

“You’re going to try to knock me down, aren’t you?” Way said, raising her eyebrow as a dare as much as a question.

Jin kicked the wall behind her and a secret door rumbled open, revealing a hidden lair, complete with a lushly appointed feast preserved in a magical stasis field.

“Maybe I was hoping you’d sweep me off my feet,” Jin said.

“You just added that while we were talking?” Way asked, admiring the melange of aromas which wafted out of the door.

“Maaaaybe,” Jin said with a mischievous grin. She brought her eyes up to meet Way’s gaze but found herself scooped up into a bridal carry which required more adjustment than she’d planned for.

“In theory, I’m supposed to be finding a path back to the rest of my party,” Way said. 

“And I’m supposed to be keeping this world clear of further interference from the Remnants,” Jin said.

“How is that going?” Way asked, sitting down in one of the two chairs at the feast table and keeping Jin in her lap rather than transferring her to the other.

“It could be better,” Jin said. “I was able to make one of the Remnants here into a real creature, but the path he chose wasn’t the one I was hoping for.”

“What did he pick?” Way asked, conjuring the wine glass from the opposite side of the table to her hand.

“He chose to become a completely ordinary person,” Jin said. “I’d been hoping he’d opt for the hero’s path and become someone who could start a transformation chain for the rest of the Remnants that are trying to devour this world.”

“That would have been pretty convenient,” Way agreed. “Did he say why he chose to become someone ordinary?”

“Pretty much what you’d expect,” Jin said. “When he saw what this world had to offer, he wanted to experience it as fully as possible. He wanted hot days to feel hot and frigid winds to chill him to the bone. He wanted to feel hunger being satiated and thirst being quenched. And he wanted to dream.”

“I was wondering if the dreams would get him,” Way said. “Those are hard to give up.”

“Yeah, I knew there was a good chance he’d stick with them, but I figured it was worth a shot anyways. It seemed like it could be the answer after Tessa figured out how to convert a Remnant into something this world could accept.”

“Well, partially accept,” Way said, “The [Formless Hunger] is still breaking all kinds of physical laws here.”

“Have things started coming apart yet? Are you having to hold anything together?” Jin asked, a note of concern creeping into her voice.

“Not yet. Tessa did a real number on the Remnant when she turned it into the [Formless Hunger]. It’s only violating physical laws at the moment and those are kind of wishy washy suggestions in this world to begin with.”

“Do you want me to keep a closer eye on things here?” Jin asked. “I know how quickly things like that can change.”

Way popped a candied meatball into her wife’s mouth.

“It’s ok. The Hunger’s nowhere near the stage where I’d need to take the world apart to stop it, and it’s ok if I have to be the one to do it if it ultimately comes to that.”

“I’m trusting you about the first part of that, but if worst comes worst, please let me be the one to dismantle everything. I know how much it reminds you of some of the bad times you’ve had and I would literally do anything to spare you from that.”

“I thank you for that, but I know it’s not any easier on you,” Way said.

“It’s not easy, but I think it’s easier. Especially in this case. You’re a lot more embedded in this world than I am.”

“Yeah, I am,” Way agreed. “But that’s why if it’s got to be destroyed, I’m probably the right one to do it.”

“Because you can carry the essences of everyone to a new world?”

“Oh, I’m not getting into a competition with you on that one,” Way said. “I’ve seen how much you like creating new worlds. No, I should be the one to destroy this world because I’ll know when the people here have given up, and as long as they’re willing to fight on, I’ll be right beside them.”

Interlude – Craven Slink

Dreams typically don’t dream, so when the [Craven Slink] lay down with the pillow, it was surprised to find itself standing on another world. Once which had never existed before, but which seemed as real and solid as the one it had been stalking through. The only difference, apart from absolutely everything, was in the Slink itself.

“Why do I have fingers?” it asked, admiring a hand which it was sure it hadn’t possessed before laying down.

“You’re trying out an identity,” Jin said.

The Slink knew her. She was the one who had given it the pillow. 

But she had been in the other world. The tasty one.

How could she be here? 

The Slink was still struggling with the concept of “here” in general. It couldn’t remember what it’s existence had been like before it was conceptualized and then forcibly incarnated. It put that aside through to ask what seemed like the most pressing question it could articulate.

“Why me? Why like this?”

“All part of the experiment,” Jin said. “I need to see what happens with you in the long term and I can’t wait for a long term to pass in that world, so I had you make this one instead.”

“I made this?” the Slink asked. It looked around and saw an endless series of hallways branching from the crossroad it stood on.

Rather than being a hedge maze or a dungeon carved from stone, each branch seemed to be pieced together into a patchwork irregular corridors taken from every milieu of the world.

“You made this and you are this,” Jin said. “This is your dream. Almost everything here is a part of you.”

“What am I supposed to do?” the Slink asked.

“Whatever you want,” Jin said.

“But you’ll be judging me, won’t you?”

“I’m not here for the decor.”

“Fine.” the Slink said and turned to sit facing away from Jin. “I just won’t do anything then. If I’m trapped her I don’t see any reason to help my captor.”

Jin didn’t reply to that, so the Slink stayed where it was and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After what felt like forever but was probably closer to five minutes, the Slink turned to look behind itself, convinced that Jin had left it trapped there in the center of a nightmare.

She hadn’t through.

When the Slink turned she was sitting right where she had been.

“Making no choice is still making a choice. Your know that, right?” she asked.

“That’s unfair!” the Slink said.

“Of course,” Jin said. “You’re alive. Fairness isn’t something you can expect to happen on its own. It’s something you have to make.”

“I want to go back to what I was,” the Slink said.

“What were you before?” Jin asked.

“I don’t know,” the Slink said. “Not this.”

“All of those paths lead you being something other than what you are now,” Jin said. “If what you want to be is ‘not this’, any of them will suffice.”

“They’ll be worse than this,” the Slink said.

“Some of them,” Jin agreed.

“How do I know which one will lead to something better?” the Slink asked.

“People have been asking that question about their choices since the concept of choice was created.”

“That doesn’t help me,” the Slink said. “I don’t know where to go.”

Jin shrugged and leaned back to rest against the padded wall on one side of the crossroads.

The Slink saw how small and human she looked. Easy prey. Another part however was much wiser than that. It remained quiet.

All it had to do was sit down and not get up. The horrible curse of self-awareness would wear off eventually.

It might takes year.

Or forever. The Slink wasn’t sure if it was mortal or not.

It could stay sitting for billions of years and neither fall apart nor fade away.

“I’m going to try that one,” it said, rising to its feet after a solid thirty seconds of contemplation. 

Jin nodded, neither affirming nor condemning the choice, before fallen into position behind and to the side of the Slink.

The Slink hadn’t picked a passageway at random. Some of them were too dark to see down, even for its  eyes. Some of the had obvious pitfalls, or harbored creatures the Slink had no desire to attract the attention of.

Not that it was in any danger it suspected. Nothing in the odd maze was going to come close to the danger the young woman walking behind the Slink.

“How far do I have to walk down this path?” the Slink asked. The comforting uniformity and lifelessness of the plain gray walls was growing less appealing with each passing step, and despite a few twists and turns, the path didn’t seem to be leading anywhere. 

It was just an endless track of bland, artless monotony. Unless maybe it wasn’t? Maybe the Slink just needed to walk farther on, to the next turn, or around the next curve. Maybe something worthwhile was waiting for it, if the Slink just kept plugging away.

“”There’s nothing down here,” it said.

“There’s a gray hallway,” Jin said.

“I mean nothing good. Nothing that I’m looking for.”

“Got a sense of what you’re hoping to find?” Jin asked.

The Slink stopped short. 

Was it hoping for something?

It definitely was.

Why?

Because it was missing something.

Missing what?

It had no idea. When Jin had instantiated it, she’d left some vital piece out. Whatever she’d missed was what the Slink needed to find.

It turned without explaining any of that. She probably already knew what it was missing. It was just an experiment after all.

The walk out of the gray hallway was far shorter than the walk in had been. 

“Was that all I did? I thought I’d walked farther,” the Slink said. “It didn’t matter at all did it. I just wasted my time.”

“Did you know the gray hallway wouldn’t work for you before you walked down it?” Jin asked.

“No.”

“You learned something then.”

“Is that what I’m supposed to do then? Walk does every one of these paths and learn that I hate all of them?”

“If that’s what you want,” Jin said.

“What I want is to be out of here,” the Slink said. “What I want is to be someone else.”

“So what’s stopping you?” Jin asked.

“You are! You won’t tell me where to go!”

“Is that what you want?” she asked. “Do you want me to plan out your life for you? Do you want me to make your choices for you?”

“No, but these aren’t choices,” the Slink said. “If I don’t know things are going to turn out how can I make a choice?”

“Some choices are made with full awareness of the consequences, some are made entirely on faith. Most are somewhere in between though.”

“What about that one? Is it a good choice?” the Slink asked, pointing to a corridor shrouded in shadows which danced to the torchlight from deeper in.

“Yep,” Jin said with a nod.

“Then I’m going there,” the Slink said, stalking off in a huff, but not so fast that Jin couldn’t keep up with it.

“This would be easier if I wasn’t alone,” the Slink said.

“But wandering alone makes you such an easy target,” a pale [Slaver] said as he hurled a weighted net over the Slink.

To call what happened next a fight would be to suggest that the [Slavers] were a viable combat force against the Slink. The term massacre would be more appropriate.

The net fell from the Slink’s shoulders as its flesh and blood crackled with a destroying layer of static.

There were five [Slavers] waiting in the recesses of the hallway.

None of them escaped.

In the aftermath of the battle no blood stained the walls and no bodies were left behind. Only incriminating piles of dust lay where the [Slavers] had once been.

“I thought you said this was a good choice!” the Slink said, whirling to face Jin.

“It was,” Jin said. “You got to fight. That would be wonderful for some people. You destroyed those who would degrade the innocent and the weak. That’s some people’s entire definition of good.”

“It’s not mine!” the Slink said. “I didn’t want their blood on my hands. I didn’t want to be a murderer.”

“And now you know that,” Jin said.

“Sure. Now that it’s too late,” the Slink said.

“Except that it’s not,” Jin said. “This is your dream remember. The [Slavers] were as much as part of you as the body you’re piloting around or the walls you’ve erected to keep yourself in.”

“I didn’t kill anyone?” the Slink asked. “This is all an illusion?”

“Correct and incorrect, respectively” Jin said. “You didn’t kill anyone, but this is far more than an illusion, and far less. You are on the border of what is real and what’s not.”

“I could go back to being what I was before then?” the Slink asked.

“You could leave reality and become a disembodied Remnant again,” Jin said.

The Slink felt like there was something Jin wasn’t saying there, but other questions crowded out contemplation on that.

“What would I need to do?” the Slink asked.

“Pick a hallway which leads to Oblivion,” Jin said. “Walk down it till there’s nothing left of you.”

“That sounds easy,” the Slink said.

“It’s easy to perform the actions. There’s no trick to it.”

“How do a figure out which hallway leads to Oblivion though?” the Slink asked.

“Ultimately they all do,” Jin said. “The trip’s just a lot shorter on some.”

“What about that one?” the Slink asked, pointing to a corridor which seethed with a beating crimson light.

“That can be a quick one,” Jin said. Her expression was neutral, which left the Slink wondering if she disapproved of the choice or if she was grateful at the prospect of seeing it destroy itself.

“And all I have to do is walk down it?” the Slink asked.

“Yep. Pretty simple.”

“Will it hurt?

“By definition, yes, but, if you return to the state of a Remnant, those memories will be lost too.”

“Can I do it without it hurting?” the Slink asked.

“No,” Jin said. “You may avoid feeling the pain, but there’s always pain in loss.”

“But I don’t have to feel anything?”

“No, you don’t,” Jin said.

The Slink started walking towards the crimson hallway. It reached the entryway and stopped though, turning back to Jin for another question.

“What if I change my mind? Can I come back here?” it asked.

“Not as you are, or as you could be in this moment,” Jin said.

“That sucks,” the Slink said.

“That’s why there’s always pain, even if you don’t feel it,” Jin said.

 “Ok. I get that,” the Slink said but made no move to advance forward. “Why is this even here? Shouldn’t there be a door in front of it? Or a big boulder or something?”

“For some people there are, for others it’s all too easy to walk down hallways like this, sometimes without knowing what they’re doing.”

“That’s terrible! Who lets that happen?” the Slink said.

“Few people let it happen, but sometimes there’s no one in a position to warn someone that they’re traveling down a path to Oblivion,” Jin said.

“Nobody should stumble on a place like this and not know about it,” the Slink said before venturing over to one of the other paths and yanking it’s door off to cover the entrance to the crimson hallway.

“I agree,” Jin said.

“I…I don’t think I want to go down there yet,” the Slink said.

“That’s ok,” Jin said. “This world is better off with you in it.”

“But I’m a literal monster,” the Slink said. “How can I possibly make the world better? It’s not even my world.”

“It can be,” Jin said. “Our worlds are what we’re given and what we make of them. Would you like to see what you can make of this one?”

“Yes! How?” said the [Hopeful Slink]

“Choose a path,” Jin said. “I’ll be there with you.”