A World to End (preview)

  I dropped down into the opening and felt the air whooshing past. I braced for impact, knowing my athletics would absorb the damage.

My boots thudded into the soil, my knees buckled slightly, and I dropped to the ground, my sword falling momentarily free. I reached out and grabbed it, using my shorthand to stow it. I then looked up into the darkening opening far above. Something glinted.

“Valentine, is that you?”

“Catch meeeee!!!”

I heard a cry crescendo as it neared me. I paused, reached out, and waited.

She dropped like a stone, butt first, arms outstretched. About the opposite of graceful. Yet I couldn’t fault her for it. She couldn’t fall any other way – her skills weren’t high enough.

I held out my arms, waited, adjusted slightly and… oof! She landed safely in my waiting embrace.

She smirked and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before vaulting out.

“You’re a life saver!” She said sweetly, her voice trilling on my virtual ears like a beautiful melody.

I probably would have blushed – I should have blushed – but didn’t… I couldn’t. My virtual avatar just… didn’t.

I watched her flounce away, her shorts providing what I thought would be very little protection, and her long, red leather trench coat floating out behind her. She turned and smirked. “What? What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

I shook my head and obeyed, falling in behind her in what would like an obedient dog following his master. Well, if she were my master, I’d’ve followed her to the end of the world. And… well, that’s quite realistically where we were.

The Chasm was the center of the world, and its end. For years, we’d battled our way to this point – to this End Game. And here, at last, we were. I paused for a moment and closed my eyes, settling my nerves. “Okay, what’s the plan.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t put all my points into intelligence,” she responded. “I have no idea.”

We turned to our companion, a stereotypical bookish nerd. He shuttled from the darkness, winding a long rope he’d apparently used to leverage himself down here. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, pushing up his glasses, “not all of us can freefall and survive, or will be caught if we try it on our own.”

Valentine gave her little lilting shrug, then smirked. “I just shouted ‘catch me,’ and he did.”

“What can I say, I know how to do what I’m told.”

Our friend, Sergei, shook his head, and adjusted the rope one last time before it vanished into his inventory. “Indeed,” he muttered. “I think she controls you sometime.”

Valentine looked offended. “How dare you cast aspersion upon my good name?”

Sergei shook his head. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

I actually felt a slight bit of ire rise unbidden in the back of my throat. “She’s right, Sergei. That’s not what we’re here for.”

Sergei gave me an apprising look, then shrugged. “Right.” He glanced across at Valentine, who was fixing the top hem of her low-cut shirt. She adjusted her coat, then pulled her hair back into a long, wavy ponytail. She caught me staring and gave me a wink.

“Okay,” Sergei began. He had crouched and pulled a small drafting table out. On it were maps and plans. He selected one and shared it with us. Instantly, copies appeared in our hands.

“What’s this?” I asked. “My intelligence skill isn’t high enough to read these.”

“Ah, forgot about that.”

“Same here,” replied Valentine.

Sergei paused, then nodded. 

“Drink this.” He handed us both a bottle. I pushed it to my lips and instantly felt the effects. A small swirl began to form on the page, then I understood.

“You have the plans to the Core?”

He nodded. “You have to level up at least three crafting disciplines just to decipher the plans to make the equipment to even breach the Secret Chambers.”

“Hold on, Einstein,” muttered Valentine. She paused, as if trying to cope with all the new information. “So this…” she paused again, then, with a quivering finger. “This right here…” 

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded, a slight twitch. “My avatar is glitching out for some reason,” she replied. “Sergei, any idea what’s going on?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“What was that potion?” She asked, glancing sideways at me as she did.

I felt my ire rise. “Are you poisoning us?”

“You’re smart enough to know that’s ridiculous,” he replied. “It was a simple Boost Intelligence potion. Made it myself with herbs I picked back on the first level. It’s part of the most basic batch of potions in the game. I literally couldn’t put poison in there if I wanted to. Anyone with any bit of Perception would detect it.”

“Or your Persuasion or Subtlety skill is high enough to prevent us from detecting it.”

“Let the potion wear off and your glitch will go away. It’s a broken game bug,” he replied. “It’s not a big deal. Players glitch out all the time. One fell out of the world and died a few weeks back.”

“May not have died,” I replied, “if they never collided with something, they may still be falling.”

“Well, then they’ll wish they just died.”

“If we can reset the world,” Valentine replied. “End the world… sorry, this glitch… we could bring them back to the surface.”

“The sudden stop would kill them,” Sergei replied. “They’re dead.”

“We don’t know that,” I replied, feeling a slight pulse of anger.

“What’s gotten into you?” Sergei accused, rounding on me suddenly. One finger probed at my chest. “Spending too much time with her?” He jerked his other finger at Valentine, his finger quivering slightly now, from anger, not a glitch. “You get angry for her. You follow her every whim. What’s wrong with you? Are you still a player? Are you glitching out and running on a bot program? Huh?”

I shoved his finger away. “I’ll break it next time.”

“Oh, new combo move?”

I glared down at the man.

Valentine placed a hand on my shoulder. Though it was just impulses in the brain, and she wasn’t really there, I still felt the slight pressure. “It’s fine. Both of you.” She twitched slightly. “Whatever the case – we can either bring them back or not… it’s done now. We can end this world, and Sergei’s notes show us how.”

Sergei nodded. “And how not to.”

“What do you mean?”

“How many times had the world been reset when you started playing?”

I shrugged.

“Some say six, maybe upwards of twelve.”

“And how many players lasted all those rounds?”

I shook my head. “No idea. New people came in each time.”

Sergei looked over at Valentine. “Do either of you know why?”

She twitched slightly, then shook her head. “No, of course not. You know that information hasn’t gotten out into the real world.”

Sergei pursed his lips. “Because everyone who survives a reset comes back with some of their stats from the previous run.”

“Yah, we already knew that. That’s why people felt safe enough to join in, even though they knew they wouldn’t get out.”

“Even though they were putting their lives at risk.”

“Because they knew it would simulate the real world,” I replied. They both looked at me. “What? That’s why I joined in this last round. I knew I could die, but I could do that in the real world, too. Better fight in here where I have superpowers.”

“And super limits.”

I shrugged. “Same in the real world. I’m not sure I want this world to end.”

Sergei looked down the tunnel, then pointed to the sheet in our hands. It was glowing slightly, and the words on it were slowly becoming indecipherable.

“The potion is expiring,” he replied. “Memorize this. It exactly how to defeat this boss. If we do it any other way, we simply reset the world and have to try again.”

“You didn’t let us know this earlier?” Valentine accused.

“You wouldn’t’ve understood it, and the memories of what to do only linger so long.” He gestured to the empty potion bottles that were slowly fading out of existence. “I need to you to know exactly what to do.”

“Then telling us what happens if we do it wrong?”

He shrugged. “It’s automatically baked into the plans. If you can read them, you’ll see that warning, but that will fade when the potion wears off. Memorize the successful route. Do you understand?”

I looked down at the page. It was gibberish. I knew what to do. I had memorized it. I looked over at Valentine. She was no longer shaking. She dropped the papers. Hers were gibberish as well. We both looked at Sergei. He tapped a few invisible buttons and his table and desk vanished. The potion bottles had long since vanished, and the pages we had dropped were slowly fading out of existence.

“Are we ready?” He asked.

We both nodded.

I flexed. “I’m not the brightest, but we don’t need more?”

“Ah, c’mon, big guy!” Valentine teased. “I think we’re fine.”

“I’m inclined to agree, though I don’t like it any more than you do,” Sergei replied. He pushed his goggle-like glasses onto his face, then turned to us both. “See you in the real world?”

We all nodded, a tight ball of excitement welling in my gut. I turned to Valentine. “Good luck.”

She winked and kicked lightly before prancing off down the tunnel. “I don’t need it! See you later!”

And just like that. My world ended.

A string of unintelligible words rang through the air. I quickened my pace down the tunnel. I had just finished battling a series of ever-more-powerful monsters. With my strength, they went down quite easily. I heard a scream from ahead.

I felt my heart quicken. I rushed to the edge of the cavern overlooking the Core, and felt something turn and stare at me.

My digital blood ran cold. I leapt from the railing and dropped straight down. I fell toward the massive being that made up the core of this world. Tendrils stretched off into the distance, clawing and clambering at the edges.

There was Valentine.

She stood over the Core, hand outstretched, channeling some sort of spell into its… face? Did the thing have a face? Whatever was the closest approximation of a face for the thing, she was pushing a beam of energy straight into it.

I landed beside her, giving her a start. “Oh, you’ve arrived, and so punctual!”

I looked around. “Where’s Sergie?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure where he is. Everything settled above?”

“As best I could. Finish this? Do we need Sergei?”

“No. We need to make sure this thing doesn’t have a way to reclaim its position. I’m channeling here. See if you can dislodge those appendages over there. Do whatever you have to to get them to release!”

I nodded, and started to make my way out across the bridge-like arms that held the Core in the middle of this hole.

Something pulsed under me. I felt it shiver through my legs, but they held firm. I was a tree. A solid, stupid, unyielding tree. And I could stand anything. And I did. I thundered across the arm – the large, tree-branch-like arm that connected the Core to the far edge of this massive hole.

I saw the end. It was a claw. A claw the size of a small house. It moved slightly, as if trying to get a better grip. There was something under it. I rushed across the gap. Whatever it was I was trying to find, I bet it would be under that massive claw.

I smiled as I pulled my sword and, with one mighty slash, cut free a meaty finger.

A roar echoed across the opening.

I smiled again as another finger fell free in a spray of digital blood – not that it mattered. It all felt real to me. Something… though… something wormed at the back of my brain. I couldn’t put it into words – my intelligence stat wasn’t high enough, but my real world intellect was attempting to pry through. Something was off.

I shrugged and slashed another finger. The creature attempted to readjust its entire hand, nearly knocking me off in the process. But it could barely keep up with my movements, and before long, every single finger had been cut free and the tree-trunk like arm slipped, dropping down into the darkness below.

I leapt free and looked the panel up and down.

I couldn’t make any sense of it.

Then a burst of energy flew over my shoulder, and the panel exploded.

“Next one! Hurry!”

I nodded, rushing along a narrow ledge to the next massive hand. It was firmly clenched around another panel.

Again, though something stirred in the back of my mind, I slashed at each finger until the hand and arm fell into the darkness below.

Another burst of energy destroyed the next panel.

“I can’t keep this up much longer! One more!”

I couldn’t help but wonder where Sergei had gone as my feet hurried to obey.

The final hand clenched so tightly around the final panel the wall of the cliff had begun to crack and splinter around it. I shrugged and laughed as I sawed away at finger after finger. Finally, with a roar and a crack, the fingers fell upward.

I stared in amazement for a second before someone dropped from above.

I wordlessly caught the girl and set her down.

“Four arms. Final one couldn’t hold with the other three cut. Good work.” She petted me on my head. I smiled.

She turned to the third panel and almost nonchalantly destroyed it with a wave of her hand.

Something bubbled to the surface.

“What’s happening?”

She winked. “Not quite sure. I think our stats are improving.” She twitched slightly.

We rushed together along the precipice. I could feel a series of undulations rumbling through the cavern.

“We have to destroy the final seal!” She hollered about the din.

“Why?”

“The plan! It’s the only way to bring an end to this world! To restart in a better one!”

“We’re going home?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Where’s Sergei?”

“No idea!” She responded. “Don’t worry about it, though. We did what he wasn’t able to! We destroyed the core, and now we’ll release the seals on this world!”

And she did.

With a final, crimson-red flash of light – one that sparkled with little luminescent hearts and crimson sparkles, Valentine destroyed the world. She shattered the seal.

The Core plummeted down into the depths, and the depths rolled up into nothing, taking all of us with it.

“The Core has been destroyed. The seals have been broken. The world has been made anew!”

Everything went dark.

I stood in a yawning chasm again, only this time it stretched out in all directions. I was naked, hovering in just my avatar’s skin, as if staring into a mirror. My muscles slowly deflated – almost comically. I was not a moderately-sized male, mostly human. A pair of trousers materialized, then a tunic. I felt a pistol appear on my side, adding a slight tug of weight as a holster and belt fastened around my waist. My feet touched the ground. 

“Leather boots. Not bad,” I replied. They weren’t the thick armored things I’d been wearing, but they were soft and supple – a good pair of traveling boots.

I kicked absently at the ground, unsure if that was an idle animation built into my character or just a passive response from my bored brain.

I felt a brimmed hat flop onto my head.

“What is this new world?” I wondered.

Then it appeared, stretching out from my like putty – a string of brown.

“Desert…” I wondered aloud. “Hm. I wonder if all of the geography’s changed.”

“Looks like it’s reverted back to a Hub City.”

I turned. “Valentine!”

She smiled warmly. See seemed more subdued… different somehow.

“What’s a Hub City?” I asked.

“A type of world arrangement where the main city is at the hub – like with spokes running off of it.”

“How’d you find out about this?”

“It reoccurs every few iterations. Looks like we’re in a six-spoke arrangement.”

“You seem to know a lot about this,” I responded.

She shrugged. "I did my research before joining the game. Every time the world resets, more information gets uploaded to the outside web to coax more to join. It apparently works."