“I’ve seen what the Tyrant King can do,” Roark said. “I’ve watched him trample every good thing in my world. If you don’t want to see him crush your world, too, you have to help me stop him.”
“Prove it,” PwnrBwner said, crossing his arms, eyes narrowed. When the Herald’s and Roark’s gazes snapped up to his face, he shrugged. “You want me to believe you’re an alien from another dimension, prove it. Do something.”
“Do what?” Roark couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice.
“Like Randy said, do something you couldn’t do without logging out to make it. Show me the video evidence.”
“Video?”
PwnrBwner nodded. “Yeah, I want to see it happening with my own two eyes. Foreign planets, Tyrant Kings, the whole nine yards. You want me to believe you, then make me believe.”
Roark’s brow furrowed.
PwnrBwner’s booted foot snapped out, catching Roark under the ribs. The air whoofed out of his lungs, and he doubled over, clutching his gut.
“Now, dickbreath! Not when you’ve had enough time to cook up some fancy mod bullshit on your second keyboard. Show me right now, while you’re on the spot.”
What magic could he do? What spell could prove the veracity of his words?
There was an ancient spell and blood rite the magistrates of his world occasionally used when trying a criminal for capital offenses. The magic was ancient, dangerous—drawing on forces not even the most powerful mages of his world understood—and liable to kill whoever it was used on, hence the reason it was only employed in capital cases where certain death was already on the line. But here in Hearthworld, where death was simply a minor inconvenience, there was little harm in trying it. Chances were it wouldn’t work and would instead boil his brain inside his skull until it cracked open like an overcooked egg, but if it did work ...
“All right. Just give me a moment to carve the spell. The magick of my world is a fickle thing, based around the written word.” His lips pressed into a thin line as he took the tip of his dagger and painstakingly carved the ancient and complex runes of the Ennus-Merkki ritual into his arm. The ritual was most often used to prove a man’s innocence by tapping into the memory of the caster, conjuring the events for all to see. Irrevocable proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, though the spell was prohibitively dangerous with so many variables that could go wrong that only a wrongfully condemned man on the edge of the gallows would ever dare pay the price.
Luckily for Roark, lives came cheap in Hearthworld.
While he cut jagged slashes that had no known meaning in his home tongue, he envisioned the scene he wished to project. The death and bloodshed and pain of the event that irrevocably shaped his life: von Graf Manor during Bloedrige Noct. He finished the line of twisting, jagged, ancient script, blood leaking down his arm and pattering onto the floor below. As he accented the last rune, the line of text running over the inside of his forearm flashed, golden light bleeding from his body.
A feminine scream cut through the room like a knife.
The tiny stone cell wavered, then melted into the residence wing of the manor.
Bodies lay strewn across the hall, blood pooling beneath his cousin Dirk, his aunt Caena. A boy with olive skin and dark hair watched as his uncle Gareth pulled himself across the wood floor after one of the Ustars, leaving behind a streak of red as he tried to avenge his murdered wife and son with his last breath. Down the hall, fire flew and walls exploded as Erick von Graff battled the Tyrant King, trying to defend Roark’s mother and little sister, Talise. Roark’s father was a brilliant mage, his spells known throughout Traisbin, but his quick pen was no match for Marek’s lawless magic.
An invisible blade tore through Erick’s neck, beheading him where he stood.
Marek stepped over Erick’s corpse and raised a hand. A moment later, Roark’s mother and Talise were dragged out of the bedroom by invisible chains, screaming and fighting but unable to escape.
An Ustar soldier came around the corner from the other residences, blood dripping from his snake-fanged axe. Terrified, the eleven-year-old Roark grabbed the hunting knife from his cousin’s limp fingers and carved his first blood cantrip into his forearm.
I am invisible.
The boy vanished as the spell took, and the scene shifted. In the courtyard, Ustars executed the remaining women and children of the von Graf household. Roark watched the scene unfold from the hidden window off the secret passageway to the blue sitting room, seeing it as he had that night just before escaping into the tunnels beneath the manor. He looked on as, beside the well house, an Ustar’s axe sliced down through the air, and his mother threw herself over Talise.
But the scene didn’t end as it should have when the boy turned and ran down the stairs into the darkness.
For the first time, Roark watched the Ustar kick his mother’s still-twitching corpse off of Talise and raise his axe once more. The little girl scrambled to her feet, dazed. The blade fell, and Roark braced himself to see his sister’s skull split open.
Instead, when Talise cried out and threw her hand up, bright orange light flared in a dome around her. The snake-fanged axe hit the barrier and shattered.
Talise’s knees buckled, and the dome disappeared. She fell into the snow, shoulders heaving with exhaustion or tears or both.
Marek stalked across the courtyard, eyes as wide as saucers, his fine furs whispering across the snow. Talise wailed in fear and scrambled backward, trying to get away.
As the Tyrant King closed with her, she threw her hand up once more. Orange light flickered and failed.
Marek grabbed her by the back of the neck. Talise kicked and scratched him like a feral cat, but amber light flashed on Marek’s chest, the World Stone enacting its strange magic, and she went rigid.
Roark remembered the spell. Marek had used it in an attempt to torture the Rebel Council’s location out of him. He’d nearly given it up just to stop the pain, and he’d been a grown man at the time. His blood boiled and his mind went red with fury at the sight of the bloody bastard using the spell against his six-year-old sister.
When Marek stopped, Talise was shaking and hysterical, promising to be good. The Tyrant King set her on his hip like a kindly grandfather and, flanked by his Ustars, walked out of the courtyard into the night.
The vision wavered and disappeared, leaving behind the small stone cell.
Roark’s mouth hung open. He stared through the Arboreal Herald in front of him, stunned. His heart pounded like a smith’s hammer against the wall of his chest. That wasn’t right—Marek had butchered everyone. Cold-blooded. No survivors. Talise couldn’t still be alive. Everyone in Korvo said Marek had wiped out the von Graf family that night, save for Roark. And that flash of light when she threw up her arm, the dome protecting her... No paper, no writing utensils... It wasn’t possible. It flew in the face of every law of magic governing Traisbin.
The world spun and he barely noticed his two captors until PwnrBwner broke the stunned silence left in the wake of the vision casting ritual.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck,” PwnrBwner said, his mouth hanging open. “Seriously. Holy shit. What was that? Was that the...” He trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words for the first time Roark had ever seen.
“Was that...” The Herald swallowed, the dry click in his throat audible. “Was that the Tyrant King?” Without waiting for Roark to answer, the Herald grabbed PwnrBwner by the shoulder. “Uh, my colleague and I need a minute to discuss something. We’ll be right back.”
With that, he opened a portal in midair and pulled PwnrBwner through, leaving Roark alone in the stone cell, images of his little sister on the Tyrant King’s hip replaying in his head.
Change of Heart
SCOTT BAYANI AND HIS Admin accomplice, Randy, teleported away from the boxy room where Roark was bound, back into the basement of Randy’s sprawling estate on the rolling slopes of the Whispering Steppes. Begrudgingly, Scott had to admit that the place was slick as hel
l. A work of art, really. Not that he’d ever tell Randy that. Scott had seen a big chunk of the place when Randy led him through the first time around, and it was clear the estate had been assembled over months or maybe even years of gameplay.
Whether that gameplay was Randy’s or Randy’d just been given it for working in Hearthworld Admin, somebody had put in the work, and it showed. Scott could respect that.
The basement was the plainest of the estate’s many rooms by far, but even it was impressive, with high ceilings, the forge and smithy tucked away in the corner, and the shelves and chests filled with rare loot. Several wall plaques and display stands littered the room, showcasing a variety of hard-won items. Scott didn’t recognize all of them, but he knew a few on sight and would’ve given his left nut to get his hands on any of them. The gleaming Bloodcursed Impaler, won from the Arch-Demon Lords of The Damned and the Restless quest line. The gold and azure Dragonmaw Warhammer, pilfered from the corpse of the Red Lord. Even the incomparably rare Casque of Holy Protection—only a .02 percent drop rate—retrieved from the winding heart of the Stonemire Labyrinth.
Randy may have been a dork, but Scott had his suspicions that not all of this had been forked over to the Herald as fringe benefits of the job. And if he’d won even a little of this shit on his own, then the dude could game like a mofo.
But none of the impressive treasures on display held Scott’s attention this time around. He wasn’t an introspective guy by nature, but after seeing that... whatever the shit that had been... all this loot felt shallow somehow. After all, this crap was just code. Somebody made it up. What the Griefer showed him had been real people. Or aliens. Whatever they were, they’d been cut down, slaughtered. Maybe that dickface Roark had crafted some kind of elaborate cut scene or something, but Scott doubted it. Nah, he’d just seen real magic. And watched real people die. That was some edgelord bullshit he didn’t want any part of. But some small piece of him also felt a thrill race through his body. Another world. A place with real magic. With real evil. With real heroes—not just the wannabes of Hearthworld playing pretend.
Scott glanced at Randy, who seemed to be in a state of shock. He didn’t seem to be in a particularly talkative mood. Scott decided to break the ice and get the ball rolling.
“Did you see that crap, dude? So like”—he shrugged, his armor clinking lightly—“I guess that fake pirate asshole is actually a real pirate asshole. How ’bout that shit.”
“I... that’s...” Randy fumbled for words, sounding both frantic and awed. “Well... I suppose that would be my conclusion, too. Yes.”
“I mean it has to be real,” Scott replied, frustrated by the realization. All this time, that asshole had been griefing him with cheater magic. He should probably forgive the dude since he was like an interdimensional refugee or whatever, but it was still some world-class cheating bullshit. Still, he felt vindicated that Roark hadn’t beaten him fair and square. There was a serious asterisk next to all those losses. “So what does that mean? Like, what do we even do with that?”
For a moment neither of them said anything, both just grappling with the weight of the impossible situation.
“This is the quest,” Randy finally said, his voice more confident than it had ever been before, like he actually owned a pair of balls. “This is our chance, Scott. You’ve logged a lot of hours in Hearthworld.” Not a question, just a fact. Scott had spent a buttload of time inside these servers, working on both his main character and his various alts. It was pretty much his life, as far as he was concerned. IRL was the real grind, filled with petty bullshit and pointless relationships that he couldn’t care less about. Out there, he was an NPC, working just hard enough so he could eventually make his way back into the game.
“Why?” Randy asked, his gaze oddly intense. “I’ll tell you why. Because the real world is meaningless and terrible. Because it’s just awful bosses. It’s bills that won’t pay themselves. It’s living your life like a rat running around in a wheel, always moving, but going nowhere.”
Scott shrugged, but said nothing. The dude wasn’t wrong.
“But not in Hearthworld,” the admin continued. “In Hearthworld, you’re someone, and there’s always more going on than meets the eye. There are quests to finish, levels to earn, mobs to grind. In here”—he swept an arm around—“things make sense. You put in the work and you get rewarded. In here you can be anything if you have enough dedication. In here there’s magic. Except...”
Randy faltered and glanced down, losing some of his steam and confidence as he shifted from foot to foot. After a beat he glanced back up. “Except none of it’s real. It might look real and even feel real, but at the end of the day you have to log out and go back to the real world. You have to go back to your terrible job and the bullies and the jerks who take all the credit for your hard work and dump all the blame on you. At the end of the day, it’s all fake. The monsters. The quests. The heroes.” Randy looked back up at him, his silver eyes so intense that the dude looked more than a little cray-cray. “But not this time, Scott. We could be real heroes. We could actually take down a World Boss and make a difference in the lives of millions of people.”
“Or aliens,” Scott interjected.
Randy went on as if he hadn’t heard. “Instead of pretending to exist in a world of magic”—he lifted a hand and foliage burst from his palm, vines curling, flowers blooming—“we could be a part of the real thing.”
Scott put his hands up.
“Okay, spaz. Enough with the rousing speeches.” Truthfully, he felt more alive than he had in years. More excited and hopeful than he ever had before. Ever. But he couldn’t say any of that to Randy. “I get it. Real magic. We can be heroes. Avengers assemble. Blah, blah, blah. I’m in. Just shut your stupid geek piehole before I vomit in my mouth. Now what the fuck do we actually do? It’s fine to talk, but we need a plan to execute.”
The admin’s face went blank, as though he were just now considering that for the first time. After a moment he shrugged. “Maybe we should go ask the magic guy from another world?”
“Well, come on,” Scott said. “Get us back there already.”
With a little Admin power and fairy dust, Randy shifted them back into the stone box with Roark. The Griefer was on his knees where they’d left him, glaring down at the floor like he was trying to cut a hole in it with some faulty laser vision.
Scott had come around to the idea that this guy was a legit wizard, but he had to admit he felt a small surge of satisfaction about Roark getting some well-deserved payback. Until he heard the guy’s ramblings. The dude was mumbling softly about how “It’s not possible” and “Everyone died. They couldn’t keep a secret like that. Could they?”
Almost against his will, Scott saw flashes from the fucked-up vision again. Roark had probably lived a pretty messed-up life, so maybe he could be a little bit less of a dick about the whole griefing thing.
After a second, Roark shook his head, gaze coming back into focus like he’d finally realized they were back.
“Well,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Have you decided what you’ll do with me then?”
Scott crossed his arms, planting a disdainful expression on his avatar’s face. “Fine, brohole, you’ve officially convinced us you’re from another stupid planet or whatever. Congratulations. We believe you.”
“You believe me?” the Griefer said, looking from Scott to Randy, then back again. “Both of you?”
“Yeah, dickface, we believe you—even if your accent is stupid as balls.”
“And we’ve decided,” Randy jumped in, scooting up next to Scott and dropping a hand on his shoulder, “to help you. But if we’re going to do that, we need to know the whole story, and where to start.”
Scott shook Randy’s hand off. Yeah, they were in this together, but he was still the alpha here.
Roark grimaced and picked at the collar encircling his throat. “Well, I suppose you can start helping me by taking this bloody damned collar o
ff.” He nearly growled the words.
Scott watched as Randy blushed like crazy, his face turning caught-farting-in-school red. To get that kind of avatar response, the admin must’ve been in one of those uber Deep Dive capsules. The fifty-grand models that came with every bell and whistle on the market. Scott was even more jealous of that than he’d been of the guy’s estate or his badass collection of gear.
“Yeah, sure, sorry,” Randy mumbled. He pressed his thumb to the metal and mumbled, “‘AssMan_69 is one classy motherfucker.’”
Immediately, the collar opened and fell away.
“Okay. You’re free. So what are we waiting for?” PwnrBwner asked, bringing one hand to rest on the mace head tucked into his belt. “This tyrant asshole needs killing. Let’s go asshole hunting.”
RANDY DIDN’T HEAR A word the Griefer was saying, not really. He caught the vague impression of an imminent war between the Cruel Citadel and the Vault of the Radiant Shield, as well as an alliance among Infernal Dungeon Lords. His brain also registered when Scott jumped in with relevant questions—while simultaneously filtering out his perpetual onslaught of douchebag comments—but for the most part, Randy’s brain was in another world.
Specifically, the world Roark the Griefer had come from.
There was a whole other dimension out there, one where magic wasn’t just real but commonplace. As an engineer and scientist, he’d always hoped... but he could never quite believe. Part of him still wanted to say this was all some trick cooked up by a modder who’d anticipated their moves far enough ahead to create a cutscene of carnage and violence so well made that it could’ve been news footage from some war-torn country mid-regime change.
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