Hello, and welcome, gentle readers. Please, if you would, allow me but a moment of your time to preface this work with a small anecdote. As an author, a creator, let me tell you a secret.
Different stories form in different ways. Some sprout from the garden of an author's mind because of careful pruning and care. They are crafted and constructed piece by piece and given strict attention, like a bonzai. Others grow of their own accord, but still follow a framework, like a creeping vine. Then there are others that sprout up like beautiful, spiteful, prideful little weeds.
I did not make Tyrannica. Not really. Tyrannica marched up to me as I tended my garden, picked me up by my shirt and said. 'My name, is Tyrannica. I am here. I exist. And you will listen to my story.'
Through and through, that is what this tale is. Her story. Tyrannica's decisions are her own, with all the smiles, tears, and heartbreak that will follow. I am merely the dutiful author, recording it for you, gentle reader.
Overly long intro aside, please enjoy.
This is the story of Tyrannica, the Tyrant of Chains.
***V***
Voracity
Chapter One
Vacation
***V***
My fingers danced over a keyboard as my mind wandered somewhere far away.
Across a gap of thought a light year in length, my body is a distant concern. Physical fingers might be tapping away, plugging and plucking and pushing key after key, but in my mind I was shifting my grip on a hilt, feeling the weight and balance of my favored polearm.
I'm dreaming sweet daydreams about an upcoming tournament in Ronin, my latest full-dive fixation.
Turn. Hook the ankle. Sweep the leg. Stab under the chest plate of a prone opponent.
Far away fingers keep tapping. I don't need to think to fill out form four-five-two section A through G. It's ingrained into my puppeteered hands working their mechanical magic across my keyboard better than the shortcut command for my go-to sweep and riposte combo from Ronin.
Distantly, I heard a sound. An ugly sound.
For a surreal moment, as my waking thoughts returned to hell as only a corporate job can provide, it was as though the world no longer had color. Black and white. Everything but those two hues bled from the corpse reality became. All the people's faces are blank. Like clay. No, not clay. Plastic. They still look like faces, but there's nothing else there.
Someone says something again. As formless and plastic as all the rest.
Looking down at my hands for a moment, the same hollowness is there. Just meaningless lines earned over a meaningless life. An abyss opens in front of me. Around me. Trying to swallow me up and leave me monochrome and motionless and dreamless and thoughtless.
There's that sound again. It's an ugly, twisted, reprehensible curse. No better than the most vile slurs.
"Sweetheart? Can you hear me?" Debbie asks. She was the one who had been calling my name. I think for a moment my brain refused to register her. I know it was all just my imagination, yet there's always that split second where it might not have been.
I jerk my head up and away from my monitor and give a smile reserved for job interviews and funerals. I suppress the shiver that runs down my spine. It's the kind of feeling I get that comes with the absolute certainty that someone is walking over my grave. Thumping heavy boots over turned ground make sure even in death I will never know peace.
"Sorry, concentrating." It takes responding, clearing the mucus in my throat to break the monochrome spell fully. I pass off my fugue just like I always do, hoping the short response will make her go away.
She has that... Oldness to her that I despise. That decrepitude that begs for mercy or release. Like the world was eating her from the inside to leave a hollow, saggy husk. She complains constantly about how her kids never call and that her joints hurt. That kind of age that expects others to bear her burden. She deserves it, not because of achievement, but because the young owe the debt of their blood and sweat to those fortunate enough not to have died. Just by being lucky earned her something she never had to work for.
Congratulations on living long enough to drain the life from those around you.
No... That's being unfair. There's always someone worse.
I swore to myself for the thousandth time that if I ever got to the wretched age where I am nothing but a burden, I will shoot myself in the head and spare the young from pumping fake life into a corpse balloon.
"You've been working hard lately, sweetheart. You should take a vacation." Glancing up, I couldn't help but notice the sad bags hanging beneath her eyes.
No Debbie, you're just incompetent. I'm decent at filling out the body of bureaucratic bullshit through repetition. Everyone just thinks I'm good because everyone else sucks that badly. Hilarious to find myself well-regarded not for skill or merit, but through mediocrity. That about summed up my life.
Just like the last dozen times Debbie came and bothered me, wrenched from my lovely mind-space away from all the shit, I stare across the narrow alley between cubicles at the generic motivational work poster. It helps to have something to focus on. Not always. But it helps. As I look at the poster, with its too cheerful faces and vapid, empty words, my world narrows to a tiny, minuscule cubicle that's too far from the bathroom, but that's right under an air conditioning vent.
Debbie made that noise that was almost a word that I guess she thought of as me. That awful screeching noise that gave me the tickling inclination to gouge out my ears. If I ever have enough money to get a will laid out, I will make sure that disgusting, horrid sound they pin to my chest and blare in my ears will not come within a thousand miles of my headstone.
Hm, better alternative. Cut out her tongue.
I pushed the urge to commit workplace homicide aside and mustered up the will to respond. It was like dredging up a boulder from a pit of tar with my teeth. Actually, that might have been easier. At least that would have been worth talking about afterwards.
"I have a ludicrous amount of paid time saved up."
Stupid amounts of paid time. Different kinds too. Paid time. Personal time. Family time. Sick time. Protected time. All the time. If there was one thing about this job that made me stick with it for so long despite saying it would only ever be a stepping stone it was clocking out meant clocking out. I did not do company gatherings. I did not socialize. When I left work, that was it. So long. Goodbye. Tip your waitress.
"I could take a week off whenever I wanted. I've got some put in for a weekend that's coming up for a tournament in Ronin." I answer, still letting a small part of myself keep typing.
"Is that one of your games? Y'know one of my grandsons tried to talk to me about those but I just couldn't understand it. Give me some Young and Restless season one hundred and fifteen any day." Whilst gesturing, the old hag let a pen flop out of her hands. I caught the projectile before it hit me in the face. And because I'm an asshole, I set it down beside the keyboard.
Credit, Debbie. Sometimes you do listen. Though it always makes me wonder what the fuck you do with yourself. The idea of not filling every free moment with glorious dive sickens me. People spend so much time just rotting in front of a television screen. Only the short-sighted compare dive games to television. Fuck off with your cooking shows and soap operas, Debbie. Though I suppose its better than listening to her drone on and on and on about her normal inane bullshit.
Even if I make no response. Say nothing. Give no indication that I'm even listening, she just keeps talking. I tune it out.
Like I always do.
I read that stupid poster and hope that time magically speeds up.
Just like I always do.
Then I pick myself up from this, my daily torment, and head home.
Just as I did a thousand times.
And likely will a thousand more.
***V***
Back in my apartment, I have a simple ritual. Keys on the hook, purse on the small table, high-heels off, and straight to the bathroom.
In my bathroom I strip out of my work clothes. Why am I expected to dress formally for a desk job? Because fuck employees being comfortable and productive, the executives would rather have people they never see look good and resent them. Black dress gets hung up. Bra and makeup come off. It's taken me many years of practice to perfect the art of putting makeup on and off in the mirror without actually looking at myself. A strange and alien creature always looks back at me. Something with flesh so pale its translucent.
Before I leave for work, I always lay out my lounge clothes on the bed. Fortunately I enjoy the cheap microfiber stuff, and slip into fluffy pajamas and a loose shirt.
My apartment is clean mostly because I owned very little. There's a low shelf with a few books. A bed. Tiny kitchen and a small table with only one setting. My dive chair. And a simple desk with a computer that was beefy back in its day. Two-hundred square feet where I laid my head.
The urge to jump straight into my dive is there, yet a bit of unwinding seemed quite appealing.
Before I got into Ronin, I sat down at my aging desktop computer. The old thing was almost ready to be put out to pasture. I flicked through the forums for a few different games I was juggling. Ronin of course, always amusing to see people complain about this or that imbalance. Should the devs increase the feedback? Is disarming technique too over-powered? Look at this compilation of me killing people with the three-section staff.
I flicked on over to the Spellsword unofficial forum. Mostly because I had long abandoned the game, but still enjoyed checking in to see what new blunders the devs could cook up. There were rumors of a new update that would give players the option to purchase boosters before every single match. And anyone that didn't would get put on their own team facing off against only players that had bought them.
As my mind eased, free for a time from the nag of old coworkers and the crush of daily life, a notification flashed in the bottom right of my screen. It was an email. Normally beneath my notice, however in a single look I read the sender.
It was from Momonga! I hadn't seen one of his messages in what felt like ages.
Even after all these years... Even after I left, deleting my character, vowing never to return, he never took me off the email list. Almost every week after I left, my inbox flashed, brimming with talk about this raid or this event or meetup or plan. At first, the messages were painful, reminding me of everything I had lost upon giving up. Then that pain eased with years and distance. And so did the frequency of the emails.
No surprise really. Nothing lasts forever.
An unexpectedly sharp stab of guilt-riddled nostalgia fit between my ribs, almost reaching my heart. Somewhere, an old god was mocking me, I was sure. That old companion of regret, tormenting me with his coarse sense of humor.
'Look on those good old days?' It seemed to say. 'Because you were proud and a sore loser, all those years could have been yours.'
I wanted to slam my fists into my keyboard. Enough money spent replacing them through impotent rage taught me restraint. So instead I just balled my fists until my nails bit deeply into my palm and the hate and rage fell away before sting. Only after easing my grip did I open my email with aching fingers.
Although I never read them fully, I'd always check on the subject.
Hey guys, there is only one week left until YGG...
The subject cut off.
One week? One week until wha... Oh.
Oh!
Oh...
That's right. The end. Closing the YGGDRASIL servers. After twelve years...
For all its faults. For all its failings... YGGDRASIL was the shit back in the day. A weight settled on my heart and put pressure on my chest. The angry, bittersweet bite of nostalgia returned and gnawed on me. Guilt. Regret. So many years. Every day. I lived and breathed YGGDRASIL until the game became my life, with my job only existing as a bad dream, a nightmare realm of drab gray cubicle walls.
Inside the game was the real me. Because there, it was only the skill of my arm that determined my place. Not whoever was lucky enough to be born on top of the pyramid.
Or at least that's what I told myself to make the overtime more bearable. So many regrets. It had been so long... So long ago now. Years. Fuck me. I lived another life in that game. I can't remember the last one that drew me in like YGGDRASIL did. Much to my fervent effort to the contrary.
I almost closed the window right then and there.
But something made me open the email.
I would like to invite everyone back for one final celebration. As you all know, YGGDRASIL only has one week left before the servers are officially closed forever. Therefore, this will be the last message sent for the weekly guild meeting for those unable to attend. Please, join me on the last day. I hope to see you in the Great Tomb.
-Signed, Guildmaster Momonga.
Always so serious. I wasn't there when Momonga had been voted as guildmaster, but reading the emails, it was obvious. He would have had my vote, if I had been there. Though they were just words on a screen, bits on a display turned black to represent ideas, pain seemed to ooze from the message. It was so short. A far cry from the once glowing string of reports on finances and boasts of conquests and losses.
It wasn't too late to close the email. I was under no obligation to reply... Except for the loyalty to an old friend forged in battle and tears.
I clicked the reply button.
Then I froze again. Shit, I needed to hurry. No doubt Momonga would be stepping into his dive chair any minute.
Staring at the blinking cursor, I find it mocking. Blinking at me with a taunting eye, opening and closing like the lazy beast it was. How was this so hard? Why did life always get so messy? Why were people always shit? Why am I such shit for thinking everyone else is shit? I push out of the logic loop with practiced self-loathing. Lingering on it would get me nowhere. That chain of thought never did.
Something about there being a time limit is what finally coaxed the words from my fingertips. It was only a week. What was just a week? Log on, have some laughs, see the old sights. Haunt the old auction houses. I wonder if elf strippers still dance outside them for tips? The YGGDRASIL devs may have been rather prudish, but not even they could stop pubescent boys from dropping virtual coin on virtual titties.
Hey, Momonga.
I hit enter and sent two words his way, floating in their own, lonesome chat window. I waited, pondering my life choices and what had brought me back to that point yet again. What a lame ass response. Just a 'hey'. Fuck me sideways with a broom, who does that? Waits for years then just... 'Hey'. What am I, an ex-wife? Fuck.
Tyrannica! I cannot believe you answered!
Holy shit he answered.
A smile. A real smile teases my lips upward. I grin so wide it make the corners of my eyes and my cheeks hurt. I chuckle aloud at his excitement, evident through the egregious use of text emoticons.
Okay. Okay, Tyrannica, play it cool. Be smooth. Be aloof. Guys love that.
It's good to hear from you, dude. Been ages. So what's this about one week?
I already knew the answer, but I also wanted to give Momonga a chance to speak his mind.
I do not know if you heard, but YGGDRASIL is ending in a week.
I think I read about it somewhere, yeah.
You are actually the only one to contact me. Almost everyone else has quit.
Everyone?
Wait, so who else is on right now?
Just me. I have been taking care of things on my own for a long time now.
Momonga did not exaggerate. So if he said it was a long time, then it must have been an eternity for him. The image comes to me unbidden, of a skeleton standing a lonely vigil over the tomb of his friends, left alone to live on after everyone else was just dust and memories.
If... If it's only Momonga on, then it might be fun.
I remember wanting to tell him goodbye. I really only talked to Tabula and Ulbert when I left. They were the only ones I wanted to burden with... Well... Best not to think about that. I couldn't look at Takemikazuchi on my way out. Cowardly. Nishikienrai tried to message me, to ask about what happened. But again, I was too much of a gutless worm to respond.
After the fact, I tried to justify it to myself that it was so I didn't make waves. Didn't stir up drama. Point fingers. Destroy friendships by making everyone take sides. That's what I told myself anyway. Really I was just... No. No. No. Don't think about it.
Momonga... I didn't talk to him because I knew he'd convince me not to go. Even though I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. He had a special quality to him. A certain mellowness. An unflappable steadiness that made him approachable and empathetic. Those stupid weekly meetings that doubled as bitch fests for real life woes. Group therapy for the working class. It became a stipulation that everyone had to be functioning members of society. But I think it was because we could all understand each other.
What would it hurt? Really? Log in. See the old sights. Slay some monsters. Clip through the map in the central city of Vannaheim. Maybe it would just be a bunch of bullshit, and every last scrap of good memories I still had would be forever tainted. At least I wouldn't look back and wish that I had closed that email. At least I could maybe make living with my useless sack of self just a little bit easier because I had the courage to reach out to an old friend. Someone who deserved a friend right then.
Maybe it would make Momonga happy. And maybe that would make me happy.
I was thinking about making a character. For old times. I have no right asking, but would you like to party up?
My heart beats faster as just enough anxious adrenaline makes focusing difficult.
As far as I am concerned, you always had a place. Once a member. Always a member. It would dishonor the memory of the original Nine's Own Goal to decline such an offer.
His answer was quick. A sigh of relief escapes me.
You wouldn't mind boosting a poor level one newbie?
Ha! The day the Tyrant of Chains is the newbie will be a dark day indeed.
Where do you wanna meet?
I will come get you in the central city of Helheim.
Now THAT brings back memories.
I will get you some items to get you started. So I might be just a few minutes.
That'll give me time to make my character. Don't keep a lady waiting, alright?
See you there.
I practically launch myself away from my computer and hurry over to my dive chair. In a matter of moments, I was floating in the formless void with only the settings and game menus before me. There's only basic tactile feedback, with my hands nothing more than ghostly representations. Although I deleted my character way back when, I never had the heart to remove YGGDRASIL from my dive system. Sitting at the bottom of a long and exhaustive list, there it was. With a hopeful heart, I open the game. For a few seconds, there is only dark.
A seed appears, then bursts into curling branches to form the elaborate YGGDRASIL logo, wrapped up in the roots of the great tree. That old logo brings me back to a simpler time. Then the music kicks in, and for that between time, the illusion is complete. I never left.
No Character Data Found.
Create New Character?
Not just yes, but hell yes. After another button press, a stone pedestal appears with a wide menu right beside.
When the first gameplay footage was revealed on YGGDRASIL, I was one of those nuts who went through and paused the footage every few seconds, reading every race and job class the demo had shown, even if it was only for the briefest frame. Ambient music mixed with distant flowing water, unchanged since launch day, hummed in my brain. Although it was a screen rarely seen, my devotion to picking the perfect race and class to get a head start had ingrained the character creator into my gamer soul.
Scrolling through the races, I was impressed. The devs behind YGGDRASIL hadn't sat on their asses. There was easily twice the selection from the beginning of the game. Lots of sci-fi selections too. Interesting. On launch, YGGDRASIL boasted over two-thousand job classes alone. To say nothing of races. Both lists had only grown. Seeing that old division between humanoid, demi-human, and heteromorphic brought me back into my old days like a sledgehammer to the spine.
Nearly the very top of the list was Archangel. By Thor's Aesir cock I cannot ever separate that class from the first one I had ever met. Running around in the open was the bustiest golden-haired, six-winged Archangel player. Wearing nothing but the skimpiest of starter robes, I could never take any Archangel seriously once the squeaky pubescent male voice cracked forth, shaking her... His... Chest vigorously while asking to be 'corrupted'. For a fee, of course.
Though there were many tempting options I couldn't justify trying to just mix things up. It would be disrespectful to all the time I spent on my old character not to honor her one last time. Down and down the list I scrolled. Flicking past a hundred options that sparked memories. Strengths. Weaknesses. And a thousand other useless facts that were probably long out of date for the current twilight build of the game.
There it was.
Primordial Scourge.
Although Heteromorphic, like most other beginner races, Primordial Scourge started as a bit of a blank slate. The character would shift depending on the Brood path chosen. The race started in the roughly humanoid form, but could be tuned into whatever play-style anyone could have wanted. The Broods varied wildly. All with Primordial Scourge as their progenitor. From the tanky Praetorian with its ever-regenerating shield, the Viral Scions with their wicked damage-over-time spells, to the Brood Host summoners, there were archetypal classes for all.
I looked over my character with a critical eye.
She was lithe and pale, having been awoken from an ancient spawning pool in the dark Brood caverns below Niflheim to wreak havoc upon the nine worlds. All Primordial players started looking rather half-starved, with thin lips and pronounced cheek bones. Her eyes were solid, inky black pools. Cracks of dark branched from the corners of her eyes and spread to her temples. Her hair was made of segmented bone. Like ivory vertebrae, held together by black connective tissue, and done up into a ponytail. More visual effects would manifest as I marched up the different paths of evolution available to the Primordial.
With different items and resources, character customization was virtually limitless. I definitely missed that. All she had at first were simple grey pants and a shirt. A blank slate.
My bread and butter was not the humanoid form. It was just for low cost farming, and as a staging point for the real power. If I was strolling about casually, or if I wanted to throw off a Heteromorphic hunting party in a town, sure, I'd pretend to be something that I wasn't. The best results were when I used a Ring of Sleuth, making me appear as just a normal human, then getting the jump on anyone with my combat form.
Some heteromorphic players balanced their different forms. I didn't. Every point. Every skill and ability was aimed towards maximizing my combat form. The paths to unlock the later evolutions were long and arduous. Leading towards my ultimate goal: Prophet of Evolution, turning the combat form of my Primordial Scourge into a walking singularity of tuned close-combat biomorph alterations. Looking at my avatar then, as a fresh canvas, my mind was lost in an ocean of nostalgia that I would happily drown in.
Even though I've done more difficult things since, achieving Prophet of Evolution for the first time still stuck with me.
I had to get fifty human player kills. Easy. Except I had to use a special pet item known as a Conduit of Evolution that negated my health-on-kill abilities, had to get the final blow on the target, and could not die. If I died, my pet would wither and die as well, forcing me to start again from the beginning. It was a challenge. A mark against my determination and mettle as a gamer. Those early days were hard for some, adjusting to full-dive. Especially anything that used a melee weapon.
Not for me.
Oh the poor, misguided new players I slaughtered. Was it somewhat cruel? Yes. Did I specifically hunt down veterans who were shepherding newbies, kill the veteran, then claim their flock as fodder for my Conduit of Evolution? Absolutely. I may not be an adrenaline junkie, however, nothing else ever gave killing the same thrill. Days and nights were spent honing my technique. Fighting and dying and trying again. Each time I got closer, and fell short, I'd want it more.
Up to forty-four... And I was hungry for it. Then a team caught wind of my hunting grounds. I had tried my best to vary my patterns. However, I fell into habits. And that's how and where they found me.
Six of them tried to ambush me. Tried.
Although incorporeal, my hands clench around a hilt that isn't there.
There was no time to think. Only act. Armed with my wits, and the best chainblade I could craft, I fought as if it was my actual life on the line.
It had been... By all the dead fucking gods of Earth, almost a decade ago? More? I had all but forgotten. Yet the simplest recollection launched me back to that day as if it had been only a week ago. For every gamer, there are moments where you are a perfect conduit. Flawless in action. The stuff legends, champions, and speed-runners are made of. For me, that was one of those moments, cutting down the six who were hunting me with all the skills and abilities I had mastered through my earlier hunts. My Conduit of Evolution evolved into its permanent form, and Prophet of Evolution was mine to have at my leisure.
Then, because I'm a masochist who lives to grind her face against the cruelest challenges, I did it three more times. The second and third times, I imposed limitations unto myself. Once, I only went after players in higher level areas. Then, the last time, I joined up with Ulbert to truly stalk and hunt down prey. He really got a kick out of that one. Said it was fun to have an 'unholy duty' as he called it.
Of course, once I had the final racial, I could really start perfecting my build. Though not without cost.
Some races couldn't wear armor or use certain weapons. Some, like slimes, couldn't use anything at all. Many Heteromorphic players paid a steep price for their chosen races. First and foremost, they could be hunted down with impunity by humanoid and demi-human without incurring player-killer penalties. For Primordial Scourge and the different Broods that branched off from there, it was the incursion of hunger and thirst. The racial prohibited the use of any piece of equipment that slowed either stat drain. No Ring of Sustenance. No armor or amulet of Feasting. I could use food items that were rich enough to give temporary reprieve, but that was it.
Hunger and thirst was a real concern in YGGDRASIL. Players could and would go on over long expeditions into unknown territory only to respawn back at town several levels lower, and with nothing to show for it but a flashing status bar. Others needed high-tier maintenance to sustain themselves. A lot of automaton players pitched endless fits about being unable to make any kind of progress because their repair pack health potion substitutes took all of their gold.
Especially for me and my combat form that my build focused on, the upkeep in terms of raw food consumed was staggering. And yet, YGGDRASIL had never bored me in terms of farming. Literally and figuratively. After a long day of heated combat, I'd often unwind in some midgard farm somewhere, slaughtering Odin only knew how many six-legged Greater Bovines. Sadly, I only ever got the Cow King to spawn once. Damn Cow Level.
And although I had a good bit of burst healing available, if I used any of it, my health regeneration would plummet without ludicrously expensive replenishment items. Which I hoarded. A lot of. Yet pretty much never used.
Then down the list of job classes I scrolled.
It was arranged alphabetically, so I didn't have to go far.
Blade Dancer.
Unlocking the Shackled, then Master of Chains classes was its own story. Mostly I remembered the frustration of clawing and fighting my way through the public areas to get even the more obscure skill books.
That's where I met that devilish goat-man in a fine red coat. It was another hunting party of human players, chasing their heteromorphic kills. Until then, I had run solo, avoiding the groups who would recruit hetermorphs, then turn on them in the wild. Something compelled me to help the Devil Goat. That damn Ulbert Alain Odle and his evil roleplaying... But I'll be thrice-damned if his bow and manner didn't win my companionship.
A mad thirst gripped us. A fatalistic, nigh-suicidal inclination.
YGGDRASIL was the first full-dive game. Arguably still the greatest. That pressure pushed us to such dedication. Hours spent hunting. Killing. Being killed in turn. There was always one more grievance to be avenged. One more ambush to be sprung. I gathered perhaps a few too many trophies. I got really good at remaking the most cost effective armor sets.
Eventually, momentum became ours. We got good. Really damn good. Eventually we stopped dying. And gradually we found others. Other heteromorphic players sick of being second-class citizens.
That was how the Nine began.
Ugh! Enough reminiscing!
Some games had you enter a character name first. Others, last.
So with every other detail fleshed out and finalized, an ethereal keyboard floated before me. One that my fingers found not out of spite, but out of joy.
Tyrannica.
As it was. So it would be. Once a little tyrant, I had built that name into the player formerly known as the Tyrant of Chains. However, that was many years ago, with the glory associated with that champion title a distant memory.
Distant, yet not forgotten.
I hit finalize, and a new void engulfed me.
Slowly, my vision resolved into a calibrated interface. My HUD teased the corners of my vision. I stood in the middle of the wide plaza of the Helheim central city. All around, the towering gothic architecture of the city, Darksteel balconies and gray brickwork spread out before me. Merchants lined the thoroughfares, looking all kinds of shady while seedy taverns huddled in secretive corners. The fountain at the plaza center was wrought into a mass of twisted dead, thick oil spilling from chalices held in outstretched skeletal hands.
Despite the age of the game, there was a lot more activity than I expected. Not packed, like it had been once upon a time, yet far from an abandoned husk of a world. It was strange to see such a motley bunch. Mostly, there were new players, having heard of the final days of YGGDRASIL, curious to see what the fabled game boasted. See if it still held up. Sprinkled throughout the gaggles of tourists were real veterans. Those who never stopped. Those who pursued their chosen game until the end of days, standing resplendant in the finest Divine ensembles.
Momonga had told me to meet him here, so I lingered near the fountain. Sitting on the lip of the monument, I sat back to people watch.
As if by providence, I was not kept waiting long.
An Elder Lich approached me, wearing silver-blue robes and wielding a platinum staff. Both hands were adorned with glittering rings. The robes were not hooded, and the red pinpricks of his eyes shined brightly in his skull. He stood out as one of the wealthy, noble elite who lived and breathed YGGDRASIL. Who never abandoned his achievements. Only built on them. Although a part of me was jealous of that dedication, more of me was beholden to that same loyalty.
I hopped off the fountain and ran towards him, waving my arm in greeting. Inwardly, my grin was wide as his free hand rose up to return my welcome.
"Momonga! Holy shit, dude! It's been way too long. I can't believe so long. Hardly feels like any time at all, really." The character creator had gotten me all sentimental for the old days, and I couldn't resist giving my bony friend a hug. YGGDRASIL allowed for that much contact at least, and although dull, the feedback was reassuring.
"Tyrannica, thank you so much for coming back." Momonga laughed as he returned my hug, awkwardly holding his staff out of the way as he hesitantly patted my back. Although it was good to hear his voice, I had to stifle a laugh because of what a mild tone came from such an unfitting avatar.
I looked up at the skeletal man as a happy face popped up by his avatar. Remembering the old emojis, I returned one of my own. Sparing him further discomfort, I broke our contact.
"Thank me? I should be the one thanking you. One for letting me come back, and another for getting me to come back." I ticked off two fingers before flinging my arms out to indicate our surroundings.
"It's so weird how familiar it is." Gazing around at the many buildings, unchanged in twelve years, I stepped back and closed my eyes. "If I let my feet go, I bet I'd end up on the Road of Bones with Nishikinrai, stalking carebear farming parties to steal all their loot. Shit... I remember that one day we scored big. When we got those mine carts full of Starmetal?"
"You two were like criminals. But it did help us fund that expedition into Niflheim." Momonga rubbed his jaw with a bony finger. He didn't need facial expressions for me to know exactly what was going through his head.
I continued.
"We got so much gold that one day. That same guild tried pushing again and again. I even roleplayed it a bit. I'd stand in the middle of the road to draw their attention and Nishikinrai would nail 'em from behind. Did it three times to the same guild. And they never learned." Good times. Good loot. Good war that followed.
"Then you roped in Takemikazuchi and Ulbert." Momonga laughed heartily. It was the most pleasant thing I had heard all day.
Taking a stance, I reached out my hands to rest them on the hilt of a blade that wasn't there.
"It was worth it to see Takemikazuchi standing in the road like one of those ronin from the old samurai movies. And I didn't rope Ulbert into anything. He found out what we were doing and wanted in."
We could have stood there talking about the exploits of Nine's Own Goal until the game ended, so I was grateful when he changed the subject. There was pain in his voice when he spoke of the old days. Maybe he wanted to celebrate what was left, rather than what was gone. That was my guess, based on his next question.
"So, what would you like to do?" Ever the gentleman, the peacemaker, the negotiator, Momonga offered me the choice.
"You're guildmaster, Momonga. I've been gone..." I don't finish that particular statement. And genuinely I had no idea what I wanted to do. Didn't really think far beyond just seeing him again.
"Well, it has been far too long since I ran through the Crystal Sepulcher. Or perhaps the Vault of Ages?"
This time, I heard only hope in his words.
"I don't know either of those."
"I know. And they are two of my favorites. Would you like to see them?
"All of YGGDRASIL... Will you show me what I missed? I want to see it. As much as we can."
"I am very glad to hear it. Then I was right in bringing the rest along. Here," He said, handing me a bag of holding.
From a simple drop-down menu, I just select 'Add Contents To Inventory'. There's a noticeable delay. Holy shit, Momonga, what did you put in this thing? However, when I looked at the updated list of my inventory, my heart nearly skips a beat. Like a kid at Christmas, a swell of joy lifts me ten miles high. All the breadth of my old personal inventory. There's so much to choose from. Spoils from thousands of hours of playing. It's all there.
First thing I grab? A Conduit of Evolution. I can't use it yet, but I cannot resist pulling out the armored worm-grub-leech. The racial unlock is a horrific thing, writhing with ethereal tendrils.
"You and Tabula and your weird occult stuff." Momonga snorts in equal parts horror and amusement.
"Says the skeleton." I pop up a heart to add to my teasing before stuffing the bug back into my inventory. It was common practice for members of Nine's Own Goal to jab at each other for our Heteromorphic avatars. You couldn't have been through the shit we had together without a sense of humor about it.
"Says the..." Momonga gestures to all of me. He gives up with a chuckle. "Tabula gave it all to me when he left. But these seemed like the most important." His hand held out an item I almost didn't immediately recognize.
A book? A skillbook?
I took it, and turned the cover over to see the false appearance melt away to reveal the secret tome of Master of Chains. My apex job class.
"You... Remembered." For a moment, I stop, standing there in the middle of the town, gawking like an idiot. Though I was not so blissful as to not stuff the skillbook greedily into my inventory.
"You never change, Tyrannica. It is good to have you back."
"It's good to be back." I pop another heart emoji and place my hand over my breast.
"And although it might not be of much use right now, I thought to give this to you personally." With a snap of his fingers, Momonga summoned a large weapon covered in cloth emblazoned with my old crest. As careful as though I were holding my own, swaddling young, I unwrapped the package. Although trembling did not translate well in the game, nevertheless my fingers were unsteady as I peeled back the layers of black cloth.
The blade is as long as I am tall, though not garishly oversized as some made their greatswords.
No, I made Torque an elegant as well as imposing tool.
He had a strong, cruciform profile, with a generous hilt wrapped in black leather for pivoting the weapon. The blade had two fullers. A central one, true and balanced. And a second one offset from the first, running just off an edge. Through the second fuller were four rings set in one foot intervals from the hilt with one more a the end of the pommel. Connected to each ring were chains. The links were loose. Relaxed. The chains were woven around the blade just as I left it.
Torque: Divine Class Chain Blade [Living Weapon: Dormant]. The little window pops up.
With Torque, I could make magic happen.
Bladedancer for the agility bonuses and crazy single weapon skills. Weaving and cleaving. Shackled, to access the different chain abilities and weapons. Also silly amounts of ensnaring skills. Master of Chains. Because it was weird, underutilized, and needed a lot of fancy mechanical skill to pull off. Living Weapons, to imbue Torque with a life of his own, strengthening his already literal bond and adding all kinds of nasty automatic attack and skill uses. Only a few classes got access to Living Weapons. Almost all of them trash.
Was I a bit focused on bladework?
Maybe. Just maybe.
Just like my racials, the chain skills advanced in a line, up from the Shackled, obedient to the chains. Beholden to them. Up to the Master of Chains, when the Shackled became the Master. I had spent far too many hours min-maxing the shit out of my build. I would make spreadsheets whenever I wasn't playing, math-hammering point distribution between stats to figure out the best combination.
It would have destroyed my physical attack and agility to try and go Praetorian Brood to fill out my defense. So instead, I pumped enough points into agility to have both my Blade Dancer passives and the most effective dodge abilities of the Wraith job class and Reaver Brood. Rather than tank hits, I just wouldn't get hit at all. I had a lot of attack speeds memorized so I knew the perfect timing in order to [Phase Shift] through them.
But I was getting ahead of myself.
"Hello, my sweet baby. Momma missed you. Yes she did." I crooned over the bit of data. Holding him to my chest, I could pretend I could feel the warmth, instead of just a dull pressure. There were a few items from games that if I had the money, would have replicas made for my apartment. Torque was one of them.
With utterly unnecessary care, I placed the Chain Blade into my inventory.
"Are you sure I'm not imposing?" My insecurity demands one more bout of reassurance, and inwardly I chastise myself for demanding such a selfish thing from such a selfless friend. C'mon Tyrannica, you're better than that. He's been more than patient with you.
"What was I going to do if you had not shown up? Grind a bit more for gold that will cease to exist here soon?" Momonga's voice drips enough venom to make the snake above Loki's Fortress blush.
There's too many cowardly bones in my digital body to offer solace. I have no place to do so. I was one of the ones that left. What right do I to give sympathy for a game I abandoned before anyone else did?
"Are you ready?" He asks.
"Yeah, sorry for getting all sappy." From the fresh contents and legacy items I pulled out a simple Whip Chain, the weapon wrapping around my forearm and giving me a bonus level for accepting the Shackled class.
From picking Bladedancer as my start, my character came with a simple scimitar. I turned, and flung the curved level one blade towards the fountain with an underhanded toss. It gave off the sound effect of a splash without actually disturbing the rippling surface.
"May our drops be favorable, and health potions plentiful." The ritual is an old one. Almost as old as YGGDRASIL. Dozens, if not hundreds of beginner gear ended up as offerings to the central city fountains of the nine worlds. It was good luck.
Momonga waved hand, glittering with rings in a flippant gesture.
"Health potions? I am an undead, and would prefer if you did not wish for my actual death so soon."
We both shared a laugh and set off on an adventure I was sure I would not soon forget.
***V***
Hours later, we returned to Helheim's central city.
Levels in YGGDRASIL did not mean too much. Effort wise at least. If you knew the paths. Knew the farming routes. The best experience grinds, it was easy to hit max level. Although, if you had an experienced friend willing to power-level, greater heights could be achieved. A day to get to seventy. Another day for eighty-five. One more for ninety-ish. Then one more to get to one hundred.
Sitting on the edge of the fountain, I was content with seventy-seven floating by my name and hovering in the corner of my HUD.
Momonga and I had come back after the Crystal Sepulcher to get my experience bonuses from town NPCs and gotten caught up in talking. In one hand, I casually twirled a jagged crystal flail on the end of a prismatic glass chain.
Although none of the physical exertion was ours, our minds were spent. Momonga sat next to me. Side by side, in that wonderful way old friends did.
"Do you remember that all-nighter during the Siege of Twilight Keep?" I asked, drifting on the knife edge of calling it a night.
Momonga covered his face with a hand. Without facial expressions, or in bone-daddy's case, no face at all, physical expression was important in communication.
"Hours. Hours and hours." He agreed.
"I never knew just how physically exhausting a dive could be. We also did it before they changed the final boss. I was so pissed when they made it easier." Although extremely painful at the time, it was worth it as everyone took bathroom and food breaks. Then the break devolved into a very heated discussion on the best pizza toppings. By Hel's frozen teats I missed that. That camaraderie.
Standing with a swirl of his silvery blue robes, Momonga gave me a sidelong glance.
"I have work tomorrow." He stated with the grim inevitability of the void consuming us all.
"Say no more, my friend. Your character might not need sleep, but you do." I gave a tired wave and accidentally hit my thigh with the crystal flail.
Momonga turned a little more, fidgeting with his staff for probably the hundredth time.
"Will I see you tomorrow?"
I can't slam the smile emoji fast enough.
"Definitely," I stamp a foot into the ground to backup my statement. "It's funny, I haven't taken a vacation in so long, that I could take this whole week off if I wanted."
"Uwah, if only, right? Well, then I shall head back to base and logout."
Momonga paused, as if he had suddenly remembered something.
"Since you decided to come back, this is for you."
He flicked something over his shoulder towards me. It flashes in the dull light of Helheim. Holy shit dude, I missed your flair for the dramatic. With a quick motion, I snatched the item out of the air.
"What's this?" I ask, lifting the ring.
"A ring of Ainz Ool Gown. Just in case you need to stop by our guild base. There is a home for you in Nazarick."
With one final wave, Momonga's large skeletal avatar disappears in a flash of light as he teleported away.
I wonder how long he'd been planning that little line of his.
Left on my own, I gazed around at the old town. With the hour being what it was, there were only a few players from different time zones wandering about. We had gotten so caught up in dungeon crawling and raiding, we never got around to touring the Tomb of Nazarick. I didn't mind. Tomorrow was another day.
Wait... Fuck... I have work tomorrow too.
The realization almost shatters my joy. If ever there was a singular time to...
Hm... Maybe old decrepit Debbie was right. YGGDRASIL only had a week left before it would shutdown its servers forever, with no YGGDRASIL II in sight. I lifted the ring and twirled the gold band between my fingers, looking inwardly at the beautifully wrought crest.
I think I'm long overdue for a vacation. So overdue in fact, I think I might just take the whole week off.
***V***
Welcome to the end of the story! Thank you so much, gentle reader, for joining me on this journey! As a neat little anecdote, I wanted to share a small, personal story. For my wife and I, Overlord is such a treat because we've been in Momonga's place. In Tyrannica's. All that effort and progress. Those achievements small and large.
So, if anyone reading this played the first Destiny during launch, you may remember when a good portion of the exotic weapons were locked behind the exotic quests that had a random chance of dropping on turning in daily bounties. And, if you remember those, then you might recall the Thorn exotic bounty. Oh boy, did I want that gun. 'We wanted to make a gun that looked like it had been carved from the dark heart of one of Saturn's moons.' Oh, all my gamer soul cried out for that gun.
Point being, during my first blind run of the exotic quest, I got to the part where one had to get void kills in the crucible (Destiny's pvp mode for those unaware and still interested). Kills got you points... But deaths removed them.
And you guessed it, I did it the first time, then three more times because I'm an idiot. And I freaking love Thorn. (Fuck you Thorn meta for incurring the nerf). I did not do the same thing with the Chaperone. I did it once to get it, but did not like the weapon as much.
So there's my personal aside. Once again, thank you so much. I hope to plant my voice into your mind once again, at the end of the next chapter.