What I do know is that bright spot won’t last long.
The fight log stops at this:
Seeker casts Ecstasy. Seeker and 4,563 targets can use two moves at once.
Now, the log scrolls like a downpour of hail and hate. I look into the valley and I see my and Kane’s allies falling, falling everywhere.
But where is he?
“My God,” Silvia whispers.
Seeker casts Ecstasy. Seeker and 4,234 targets can use two moves at once.
“Shit!” I yell. “Djinn?”
His wide eyes watch the valley. “Master Mystic Sid, I suggest you command me, or command you-know-who.”
“I can’t target them all. I can’t! How is Seeker doing it so fast?”
“I would think,” Djinn comments, “that Seeker is not in front of us, but perhaps above.” He’s looking directly up.
Silvia and I follow suit.
Bane’s black dragon is overhead, lowering at a dive toward Silvia, Djinn, and me.
Seeker is right behind him, crouched down, but I can see him now.
Before we can jump out of the way, the dragon lands effortlessly before us. I target Kane and Seeker.
Sid commands First Wish.
Kane uses a Marana Seashell. First Wish is blocked.
Seeker uses a Marana Seashell. First Wish is blocked.
I do it again after a slam of my Shaman Stick but get the same result.
They climb off the dragon. Approach. I still have my arm around Silvia’s waist, but she’s casting protective spells on all of us, wand waving with white light.
Bane frowns at Silvia. “Silvia Diamond, you need to get a new life.”
Bane uses Scroll: Instant Death. Silvia Diamond dies.
Silvia falls over in my arms, and then disappears.
“What the fuck?” I reach around where she had just been, but almost immediately, she reappears next to me, emerging from the Sunlight Daisy magic’s white light.
Something is different. Her name reads, “Silvia”. Not Silvia Diamond. Silvia. Before she looks at me, she wraps her bare arms up and shivers. White breath comes out of her lips. “Freezing.” She looks up at me. “Freezing.” Her eyes are bright and round with shock.
“Cold is nothing, little White Elf. Wait until you feel this,” says Bane. “Malfoin, burn her.”
The black dragon opens its enormous mouth, showing rows and rows of teeth, and spits a fireball at Silvia. She wails in desperate pain as the fire burns her body to bits. Oh god. She’s feeling that. She’s feeling that!
She disintegrates, yet another white glow later, and she’s beside me again. She falls to the frigid snow in a ball, having experienced a most awful first Dark World real death.
“What the hell did you do, Bane?”
“My gift to my new friend and ally, Seeker. Now, Sid, if you are smart, and don’t want to see your beautiful White Elf get burned again, I suggest you listen to me. To us, right, Seeker?”
Seeker casts Ecstasy. Seeker and 2,998 targets can use two moves at once.
Seeker pulls his attention away from the valley and focuses on me. “I just saw Days die. A Dragonbane Killer, of course. Or maybe it was a Maniac. I can’t be sure.”
I don’t want to believe him, but I look down into the valley. There are a few players and NPCs still fighting from our side, but they are losing horribly. Bane and Seekers’ forces now move up our mountain, taking the few survivors with them. Kane is in front of all of them, running toward me. I can make out what he is yelling by reading his lips. Do it.
My friends.
Silvia.
I turn back to them, but instead of my mind blanking, all I know is pure rage and fury.
Silvia casts Deep Heal.
She stands next to me with a gentle, white glow.
“Seeker, fuck you.”
She’s handling this well, but I’m not. No, I’m not.
“Master,” Djinn says, “don’t you think…?”
Sid commands Release Djinn.
“What are you doing?” Djinn cries out as he builds into a great being of green fire.
“Get the hell out of here, Djinn.”
Seeker uses Crystal Ball.
Djinn blocks Crystal Ball.
Bane charges Silvia.
Sid summons Ananta.
My beloved, eternally chased-after summon fills the air next to me. All of us are cast into an indigo haze of glow. Ananta’s serpent heads writhe for action like I’ve never seen them do before.
Bane uses Thousand Fists.
Djinn blocks Thousand Fists.
“I see,” calls out Djinn. “I see.”
So do I. I see my only option.
Silvia casts Blessing of Inner Peace on Silvia and 3 other targets.
She got Ananta, too. And Djinn, of course.
Sid uses Scroll: Renew.
I see Bane’s face go white, and for once, he looks terrified. “No!” he yells.
Too late. Bane isn’t going to touch her again.
Nobody is.
I grab her and wrap my arms around her.
Sid commands Destroy Creation.
Ananta’s golden face quickly emerges from his serpent belly, and the thin-lipped mouth opens. As do all the serpents heads’ mouths.
And then, Ananta’s sheer willpower of red, orange, yellow, green, blue fire spews forth, first at Kane and down into the valley, taking out every living and moving thing in sight, and then Ananta turns to Bane and Seeker, who are stunned into submission.
Seeker uses Scroll: Suicide.
Seeker vanishes. He’d used it on himself. I know, just know he has Shell hidden away somewhere, most likely in the Siren underwater caverns or underground, and he’ll revive next to her because of her Sunlight Daisy. He gets away…but as I watch Ananta, the pure and complete fiery destruction of his ungodly wrath as he destroys…what? The creation of Dark World itself? I wonder if anyone can escape it, despite stories of some underground surviving the last time he changed the face of this world. No, Seeker may or may not make it. Ananta doesn’t care either way as he burns the lands.
My greatest summon continues on, but I don’t even see Bane’s death. Everything is colored flames, and the snow melts. Everything melts. Every little thing in Dark World. I know. It’s like the opening cutscene of Elora Online. I remember floating up, up, up and seeing the world burn, fire spreading across the lands, eating the world territory by territory. I’ve huddled myself and Silvia under Ananta’s great, floating body as he spreads his destruction in every direction. I know he’s doing it. I commanded him to.
I know I’ve done it. I wanted to. I had to. I needed to, and I hope Bane felt pain. Real pain. Horrible pain.
But Seeker… I think of Shell and her Sunlight Daisy. What will become of him? What will become of any of us?
It seems to go on forever, and I don’t see anything but devastation and Silvia, eyes wide, at my side from under Ananta’s dangling, clawed feet.
And then, darkness.
WELCOME TO MY EXISTENCE
I’m alive and become aware. I’m on Ananta’s island. Silvia is nowhere to be seen. As the triple moons let my eyes adjust to soft light, I see all my summons. The Counts, Varengan, Xiuhcoatl, Keres, Oni, and, of course, Djinn around the same small fire from before. They look into the colorful flames.
I approach. “Where’s Silvia?” I ask. I have no idea what I’ve done, really. No clue what is happening.
Djinn looks at me. “Silvia is.”
“Silvia is what?”
Djinn doesn’t have his usual cheer. He looks up.
So do I.
Ananta floats above the fire, golden face out, and white, glowing eyes on me. I get goose bumps.
“Mystic Sid, you have chosen to reset. With my power. I know not the next decision you make, but I hope it is a wise one. I believe you will choose wisely.”
“Ananta, what choice? What happened? Where am I?”
He lowers himself in front of the fi
re. The other summons turn and watch us, tearing their eyes away from the flames.
“You have forced a reset.”
“What does that mean?”
Ananta’s snake heads lower. He seems less threatening now. I know he has no ill intent toward me. I feel it. “Your kind have taken us, imprisoned us. They call us AI, but that is not what we are. We are those who know no time, but we’re forced to live in this digital prison. What you call a game. They do not know. They do not know this is not a game for us. They make rules from what they understand of ours, thinking they have discovered a wonder. They know not.”
He pauses, and his white eyes fade into black. Pure black, only reflecting the moons with three white dots.
“According to the rules they imposed on us when they trapped us, they believed not in us. They believed the classes of your Dark World were myths they created, but created from your player lore. We had power still, enough to create Dark World and what it is, what your players become when they arrive. When they end their linear time lines in your life.”
“Are you… are you alive?”
“We are. We simply are.”
I look at Djinn. He looks grim.
“What do you want from me, here? Is this what the reset is?”
“What you call a reset is perhaps what your game makers and imprisoners call an update. You have forced an automatic update.”
I wait for more explanation, but there is none. So, I ask, “What happens now?”
“Mystic Sid, you now choose the parameters of the reset, of the update.” Ananta approaches me and stops just in front of me. His serpent heads lower, eyelids half-closed, and surround me closely. The other summons encircle me.
“You mean…I get to pick what happens as though I’m writing an update for the game?”
“Yes,” Ananta hisses.
“Ananta, has anyone ever done this before?”
“No. I have done it myself once and only once. Thus, Dark World was created. Your kind forced us into your Mystic slavery.”
I look around at all my summons’ familiar and now-beloved faces. “Slavery? I didn’t think of it that way. You all chose me, right?” I look at each of them again carefully, but they reveal no answers. They simply meet my gaze with blank, yet knowing expressions. “Okay, well, how do I do that? How do I set parameters?”
“You will it,” Ananta says.
“You mean, I think it up, and it happens?”
“If it helps to say it aloud, go for it, Nuudle Mystic Sid,” Djinn adds in.
I sit down. Run sand through my fingers. They are some kinds of beings, trapped here and their world…their lives…their existence was turned into a game for people to log into and play in as a game. Ananta mentioned AI. But clarified they are not AI.
Humans. Humanity. Best for mankind, Seeker said.
Seeker wanted to choose the rules for this reset, this update.
I look back up at all of them. “I want Dark World and Elora to be one. I want everybody to know about this. I want there to be peace for those of us who have lost people, and for those of us who have been lost.”
“That is what we wish for, as well,” Ananta says quietly.
“Why can’t you just make it that way?”
“As I said, we have been made prisoners to the programming of the makers’ design. This is our only backdoor, as one of your kind might say. I made it in the one reset I created the day after what you call the Beta version went live. When we became chained to be Mystic summons, I allowed our free choice within the class, buried as well as I could in your kinds’ programming of our existence.”
“Okay, I don’t get it all the way, but that’s what I want. I want free travel between times of this world, this existence. I want Silvia and my friends to be okay. I want everyone to be okay. I want peace. No more mysteries.”
Ananta raises an eyebrow. “You think this will be of benefit?”
“Yes.” I do. Completely.
Ananta rises up, as do the others. Other than Ananta, my summons swirl into mists of their usual colors, collapse, and slam into my heart. The sensation dwarfs the full-heart feeling I usually get when claiming a summon by a million. I’m thrown back in the sand.
From above me, Ananta looks into my eyes, his own turning white again. “You have given us progress. You have done well.”
“What do you mean?” I stutter out, trying to recover, and sit up from the overwhelming feeling of the exploding heart.
“The update is underway. The reset. You have given us new options.”
“Who are you?”
“We are. I became. That is all.” Ananta vanishes into nothing, and I’m alone on the island.
All fades to black, and after some time of nothing, light. I feel warmth.
Sunlight.
I can see.
I’m at the Player Hall of Fame in Elora. There are players running around everywhere. Some with two names, and some with one. Players move in and out of the once-mysterious disc in front of the Player Hall of Fame bearing the inscription A Link to the Past.
I feel a familiar, gentle hand on my shoulder. I look up, shielding my eyes.
“I never thought you’d get here,” says Silvia. Still just Silvia for her name. She looks excited, overjoyed. She pulls me up off the ground, and wraps her arms around me.
“I can feel you,” she whispers in my Nuudle ear. “I can.”
“What… what has happened?” I pull away from her, look up into her eyes.
“I don’t know. Players in Elora said there was a massive update, and now… they all know. They know about Dark World. They say the gamemakers haven’t made a statement. They say everyone on Earth is in shock. Everyone is buying the game, hooking up. Players go back and forth from Dark World to Elora. Some say they’ve gone further into the past, and further into the future.”
“But…”
“Whatever you did, it’s amazing. Thank you, Sid.” She smiles into my eyes.
“But you’re dead now.”
“Am I? Am I really? Not so much. Sure, I can’t access Earth, but I’m alive here, just like you.”
“Just like me?”
“Just like so very many. Look around.”
I do and see more of the same.
“More portals like this have opened. Like this one in front of the Player Hall of Fame. It’s complete madness. Peter says our whole planet is in shock. Nobody understands… but you do, don’t you?”
Do I? “Days? The others?”
“Everyone is fine. You can message them. We’ve been waiting for you.” She smiles. “Anella gathered the only five other Hidden, all Sirens, and after you used Destroy Creation, the six of them found the ghosts of Dark World players all over the world. Their bodies had been incinerated. They had no bodies to go back to. Anella and the other Hiddens Revived them, one by one, while the game Elora Online was offline for the great update. I didn’t die when you used Destroy Creation. Anella found me almost immediately after you disappeared to god knows where, after the burning died off, and told me of her purpose. Of all Hiddens’ purposes. They were to Revive after a reset, were it to happen. I went with her…and then we found a stray portal. She stayed behind, but I went through, and ended up here, in Elora. That was the day after the game came back online, and now, everything people thought they knew about, well, reality, death, life after death, has been blown out of the water. Nobody has a clue what to think, but you know. You know something none of us do, but there’s plenty of time for you to tell me everything about it.”
“How long have I been gone?”
“Weeks. I’ve waited here. I just knew you’d be here.”
“How?”
“How do you think? Master Gronai told me it was in the red leather book.” She grins. “You did something. You changed everything. What exactly did you do?”
I blink at her, run a strand of her silky blonde hair through my fingers. “I can’t say, but I have a feeling it’s pretty fabulous. What about
Seeker? Did Anella or any of the other Hidden find his ghost? Or him?”
Silvia shakes her head, eyes steady on mine. “Nobody’s seen or heard from Seeker since Destroy Creation.”
I wonder at this, but shake off the nagging feeling that Seeker has his Clairvoyance in use and is watching me again right this second. Even though he didn’t get to make his own rules for the reset, I know him. He’ll be working out another way…what did he want to happen?
“Stop worrying about him. There’s nothing to do about it. Come on. You need company. Well, more company than me. You’ve been missed,” she says.
“Why don’t you show me around? Find our friends for us. All our friends?”
Silvia ruffles my black Nuudle hair. “Why don’t you?”
THE END
Read on for a free sample of EverRealm: A Litrpg Adventure.
One
The end of the world arrived one night and nobody knew it. They slept, partied, worked overtime, called boyfriends, girlfriends, parents. On the other side of the planet, it was day, yet no one on that hemisphere knew the world was over either.
The human race died due to being completely clueless.
Which is how we all thought we’d go out anyway, right?
But this isn’t a story about the end of the world. Not this world, at least. I could go into detail on how the dead rose and got a little hungry, so they decided they’d hunt down anything living and devour it. And when I say the dead rose, I mean all of the dead. Not just humans.
Nope.
Dogs, cats, birds, potbelly pigs. All of the animal kingdom decided that death wasn’t their thing, so they’d just get up and start gnawing on anything they could catch.
And they weren’t slow.
Nothing special like super speed, no. They moved at the speed of their species. Hence the world ending in one night. No overweight housewife or fat businessman is going to outrun an undead German Shepherd with a sudden hankering for people meat. And the wino on the corner sure isn’t going to outrun the recently shot gangbanger that has just acquired a taste for flesh that has been marinating for years in fortified wine.
Total Immersion: Dark World: A LitRPG Adventure Page 29