A World to End (preview)

 

Part 1: “Smile and Nod if you Understand the Plan.”

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 Inventory shortcut 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 be 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 distinctive 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 sometimes.”

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 appraising 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, trying to regain our attention. He had crouched and pulled a small drafting table out of his inventory. It unfolded awkwardly on the uneven ground, part of it clipping into the environment, but staying level otherwise. On it were maps and plans that seemed to be set dressing until he selected one and shared it with us. Instantly, copies appeared in our hands and a menu popped up, allowing us to more readily read what it said. Mine was gibberish.

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

“Ah, forgot about that.”

“Same here,” agreed Valentine.

Sergei paused, then nodded. 

“Drink this.” He handed us both a potion. I pushed it to my lips and instantly felt the effects. A small swirl began to form on the page, a slight blue-purpled distortion around my vision, then I understood, the words slowly coming into focus.

“These are the plans?” I asked.

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?”

“If you weren’t before, you’re certainly smart enough to know how ridiculous that statement is,” he replied with an impatient sigh. “It was a simple Boost Intelligence potion. I 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,” I replied with a smug grin. I didn’t think he had actually poisoned us, but I wanted to rib him. He rolled his eyes and pointed at the papers in our hands.

“Let the potion wear off and your glitch will go away. It’s a broken game bug,” he replied. “Let’s get to that paper.”

“But my glitch,” Valentine said, eyeing her wayward finger.

“It’s not a big deal. Players glitch out all the time.” I stated.

“One fell out of the world and died a few weeks back,” she contested.

“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,” Sergei stated matter-of-factly. “Can we get back to the plan?”

“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… what’s done is done. If you glitch out of the world and die or glitch back into the world and survive… whatever happens will happen. We can end this world, and Sergei’s notes show us how.”

Sergei nodded. “Thank you. Now, let’s get back to business. These notes show us how to reset the world and how not to.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world’s been reset anywhere from six to twelve times depending on records we still have from players,” he explained. “Clearly something went wrong at the end and the world simply reset. I’ve collected all the journals and notes I could, and I’ve chronicled every step of the plan right here.”

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 tells you 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 spat in exasperation.

“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 you 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. Hopefully my oral instructions will help seal the memory beyond what you read. Memorize the successful route. Right here.” He pointed on his own screen, and since they had been shared by him, a small series of dots appeared on our maps. “Do you understand?” He said slowly, as if talking to toddlers.

I looked down at the page. It was now gibberish, the blue-purple haze had faded, but 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 probably 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 as well.

“Are we ready?” He asked, a note of urgent despair in his voice. “We get this right and we finally get out of here.”

We both nodded.

A slight note of levity sparked up inside me. I bounced on the balls of my feet and flexed. “I’m not the brightest, but we don’t need more people?”

“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.

Part 2: If the Game Doesn’t Reset, Blow on the Cartridge and Reinsert It.

A swirl of light.

I remembered a swirl of light - it was the VR helmet’s way of matching brain waves to controls in the game… or some nerdy sciency-sounding garbage. It was probably some programmer’s way of burning out the last bits of your human vision before hijacking your brain. I always thought the coders must have been masochists - the legend had it that the game actually played out faster than real life, but no one knew just how true that was. The buzz of a new “open lobby” when all players had died or when the game had reset would spread across the internet, and no one really knew how long any cycle had been. 

For me… it had been a few years, if the journal records I’d kept were true. I’d tried to date them - and since the system had no real “date setting” I could automatically stamp, all I could do is write “the moon went up and down once since my last notes,” and then hope that I didn’t lose track of time while wandering in a dungeon.

The lights went off, leaving me to ponder with my thoughts. It was weird being back in a normal, non-accentuated brain. No special Intelligence or Discernment stat, no Charisma boosting your appeal to other people, no Strength adding a weird “Intimidation” debuff to others without a similar level. Even that Sneak stat that allowed you to mess with people’s Intuition. It was fun, but there was something… liberating about just being a normal person for a while.

Loading new screen…

Weird. Was that letting me see the End Game or something?

Then a mirror appeared. I could see myself - or rather, my avatar. I was naked, my genitalia covered by those surgically-attached vintage underthings, but as much as could be seen was there, hovering in just my avatar’s skin. I waved a meaty arm at myself and nodded. “How you doin’?” we asked each other in tandem, then laughed. As I flexed, my muscles slowly deflated like air being let out of an inner tube. I was like Paul Bunyan slowly reverting to normal size. Now, I was just a moderately-sized male, mostly human… not the roaming armored wall I had been. I shrugged. “Weight loss in game works a lot easier,” I jested as a pair of trousers materialized, then a tunic. I felt a pistol and holster appear on my side, adding a slight tug of weight to the belt that was fastened around my waist. My transformation complete, my avatar gained a bit of gravity and settled onto the floor.

“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 around me like putty – a string of brown.

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

Then that massive tower returned. I was back in some sort of city.

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

I turned. “Valentine!”

She smiled warmly. She 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. Look.”

Already, several gateways were opening, and excited people were stepping through, their avatars sparkling and new, enjoying the one-week immunity that came with all new entries to this world. One week before they could die for good, one week before they could feel pain and loss. I gazed down at my hands. It had been years since I’d been like that. I gazed over at Valentine. Since we had been like that.

She smiled at me. “I like your duds,” she said. “You some sort of cowboy or pirate?”

I pulled at the strange hat. It was like a cross between a cowboy hat and a straw hat. Pirates in this world had typically worn some sort of straw hat and all the explorers had worn some sort of leather cowboy hat. This new one… what did it represent for me? Was I some ascended class that hadn’t existed?

I pulled up my menu, the AI already populating my stats. High strength, still-nearly-maxed agility. That was a nice carry-over. And the class… “What’s a Wayfinder?” I asked. “Bonus XP for map exploration, fighting creatures in new worlds…” I laughed. “Look, I’m a colonizer! I get bonuses for fighting a new creature, for the first five of any creature I defeat, I can tame wild animals with enough stat points, and I have +5 to my Nighteye!”

“Impressive,” Valentire replied.

“What’s your build?”

She gazed down at herself. “Some sort of superhero build? I’m not sure.”

“Your AI hasn’t updated?”

She shook her head, her hand making the motion to bring up her menu. I couldn’t read it, of course, but a blank white screen appeared, and she shimmered slightly - protection from PVP. She could have still been attacked by ambient enemies, but there was a special buff that surrounded anyone staring at their menu. The blank box glowed slightly and vanished. “It’s still populating. I guess a lot of new arrivals are taxing even our AI’s abilities.”

“Weird,” I replied.

I gazed around, blinking.

“Whoa!”

“What?”

“My vision… everything just became bigger!”

“Bigger?”

“When I blinked, it was like my eyeballs… zoomed in!”

“Amazing!”

“Yeah! Apparently my class comes with…” I pulled up the window, “Farseer perk. I can zoom in on any location once per hour by blinking twice.”

Valentine smiled. “Awesome! I wonder what perks I’ll get? What were you about to ask?”

“What?”

“Before your eyes zoomed in.”

“Oh, yah…” I replied. “Any ideas where Sergei went? He should be here.”

“I haven’t seen him since we all split up.”

I frowned, trying to remember what had happened, but already the information was being rewritten. I could almost see the chunks of memory vanishing. I quickly scribbled a few notes in my character’s journal, dumping as much information into a readable text file I could access when my more detailed memories were erased to make room for new players. It was a regrettable tradeoff, but the unbelievable size of all this data… I guess there weren’t enough servers to cope with that strain.

Sergei… Sergei… where was he?

“Valentine?’

She jumped, the menu closing.

“Your stats come through?”

“Not yet.” She jerked her head toward the portals. “Looks like hundreds this round. Guess the game doesn’t think those who helped reset it are worthy of first dibs.”

“And the other adventurers?”

She shrugged. “I guess everyone’s sent wherever. We were practically on top of each other, so it sent us together.”

I laughed. “Well, I’ll go look for Sergei and check in with you later.”

“All right!” She said. “I’ll go see what the Watchtower can reveal.” She nodded up at the large spire looming over the Hub City. “Maybe I can see what the different Biomes are this time.”

I nodded and saluted. “See you later!”

“Meet me at the inn over there.”

I felt a thrill inside at the thought. “I’ll be there with bells on!” I said with a smile. She winked and flounced off. I turned and made for the distant sandstone gate, moving swiftly through the crowds. I gazed up at my stamina orb - it barely drained even as I ran at a dead sprint. I was going to thoroughly enjoy this. Putting most of my stats in Stamina and Agility right before the reset was going to be a godsend.

Part 3: If You Got it, Flaunt it

I arrived at the gate just as a few Newbs were stepping out into the sun-soaked transition, their beginner armor shimmering with the wards. They gazed up at me with respect, the lack of shimmer and the specialized armor signifying that I was a Survivor, perhaps even a Resetter, with Lingering Stats, probably the most envied things in the game.

I simply nodded at them with a “yep,” and rushed past, leaving a digital dust trail as I went. Sergei could wait. I wanted to test out my new body.

Sand canyons rose on either side of me, forming a sort of loading screen that was undetectable to the normal new player. But I saw it for what it was. I slipped through, entering a sort of instanced area. I was alone. I felt my mind clear.

The exhilarating thrill of the hunt.

My Stamina Wheel was about half-full. I’d sprinted deep into the canyons… I slowed to a stop. Swirling blue liquid began to slowly refill the orb. It would be a while… but man! How amazing was that! I could sprint for nearly an hour! I was a mule!

A boar shifted its gaze toward me. I rushed past. I had forgotten to check my weapons. No matter. I clenched a fist and pushed my body to react. Within a moment, my attack launched, and I swung forward, catching the boar by the tusk and slamming it into the ground. Dust swirled. I pushed back and launched the boar several feet. It struck the ground, sliding a short distance.

It seemed to glow with a reddish hue, then rushed me.

I tried to lunge aside, but forgot that a few of my stats were a bit lower than they had been for that last year. I couldn’t quite move with the speed I had before, and the tusks caught my shin. I felt my entire body spin out from under me, pain ripping through my knee and thigh. I reached out to catch my fall, and my hands slid in the dirt, face smearing along the path.

I let out a cry of alarm, coughing as I tried to rise.

Another strike caught me in the back, and I fell forward, the boar’s hooves trampling me into the dirt. A status effect popped up across my screen. I recognized it. I was stunned. Every motion would be slowed. I had enough skill to compensate for it… maybe.

The board rounded again and came in for what it seemed to think would be a final blow.

I knew the stun would mess with my timing, so I waited and guessed…

I was lucky.

I timed it perfectly, rushing forward with both hands. I managed to grab the tusks, wrenching the head back just enough to plant a knee in the throat of the boar. I smiled as a “Critical Strike” sound - a distinct CRUNCH - rang out, and the boar fell back, twitching. It faded into small EXP globules, which I walked over.

It was strange leveling up my stats again. I had been so high level for so long that none of the globules had done much for me for probably the last year. But now, I could feel injuries healing, Stamina refilling, and even see small, very faint track bars for my various stats slowly rising again.

I stretched. It felt good!

Then I saw my health… it was blinking. I hadn’t had to watch it for probably a year… now I was sitting within a hit or two from death. I pulled up my menu, finding a small button I had turned off last year as a challenge. It was a notification - “BING UPON 15% HEALTH” popped up as a question across my vision. I laughed at my own oversight and clicked it. I had to remember that I wasn’t the same person I was a day ago.

I pulled up my journal, added a few more lines, then paused, wrote a few more. Then the alarm started going off.

I dropped the menu as a boar ran me over. I toppled to the ground with a huff, blinking as a stun ran across my system.

“You are at 10% health. Recommend drinking potion to recoup.”

“No duh!” I yelled at the AI, rising to my feet. It wasn’t like the menu would pause this for me - and I hadn’t even checked to see if I even HAD any pots on me. I darted out of the way, smacking the boar with an open hand. It stunned the beast momentarily, and I planted my knee in its face before limping away. “Stupid… stupid… stupid…”

The boar rounded, but I aimed a kick at it before it could get too close. It bounced away, stunned, and I quickly climbed up a nearby rock, keeping an eye on my Stamina, which was actually starting to run low. I managed to make it onto a ledge and sat, watching the boar circle, trying to find a path. It finally lost interest and roamed away, taking up its old patrol route. I sighed and gazed around, accidentally activating Farsight at least once, then snapping back. I had to find a way to change how I activated that. No matter…

I searched my inventory for potions and found a few. Nothing too impressive, but I drank down what I could and tossed the empty bottle at the boar. It struck it and the boar instantly died.

I laughed and slid off the ledge, dropping down to the ground.

And immediately breaking my avatar’s leg.

My Stamina dropped to 25%, I gained a limp debuff, and found myself staggering toward the EXP globules and a small sac left behind by the boar.

“Moron…” I muttered to myself, pain lancing up my side. I’d been so used to dropping from any height. What stat controlled that? Just Strength or was it Agility? No… Athletics. No… it was the both of them together… ugh, I had to relearn all this stuff. I hadn’t even had to think about how all my stats interacted. Maybe I should put some in Intelligence this time, so I stopped being such an idiot.

I absorbed the EXP and felt the debuff leave as my health rose. My Stamina was still at about 25%, but at least I could walk normally.