Chapter 1: Same Old Story
"Wake up already! Ryan, how many times I swear…"
Good lord, this woman will be the death of me, "Gimme a sec I'm just fixing to get up, hold on!" I yelled back through our bedroom door.
Rose and I finally started dating after playing that game, Yggdrasil, for almost 10 years together. Now we've been making it work for about 2 years. Can't believe she fell for a nerd like me, I let my mind wander while I wiped the sleep out of my eyes. I grabbed at my stack of clothes, picking out my collared shirt and slacks. Another day another painfully hard-earned dollar, but we both gotta work to pay the bills. Aaaaaand maybe to support the occasional splurge on our favorite dive game.
I could already smell her cooking by the time I opened our bedroom door, smelled like eggs and fake bacon. Yummy, my favorite….
Like I said, we've been making it work. The world ain't quite like what it used to be. By the time I was born, stargazing, hiking in the great outdoors, and greenery were nothing but fantasy. I still have to pray my thanks anyway for the gift of a woman making my breakfast.
She really is a gift, that thought finished with my arms wrapping around her waist. She leaned herself back and laid one on my cheek. I couldn't help but get butterflies every time I felt her lips, I was head over heels.
"Hey, baby," I whispered right past her long, red hair and brushed my lips on her ear while she flipped the bacon.
"Uh, uh! No sir! It is way too early for all that! Get yourself a plate and get sat down, we both got work today you know better." Her sheepish grin and rosy, freckled cheeks didn't get past me.
I shot her my best attempt at a shit-eating grin, which I'd personally consider award winning, and earned myself a frown in place of her grin. "Oh come on, Rose, you know I'm playing! Anyhow, what time you think you'll be getting back tonight? Working a late shift?"
I walked back to the stove now, plate in hand when she answered, "Not tonight, sweetheart. I should be back around supper time, what about you? Something going on tonight?"
The sweet sound of her southern twang was comforting as always, but her question still reminded me of the sadness that brought my line of questioning in the first place, "Well, I saw on some forum they're shutting down Yggdrasil for good tonight. I know you haven't played in a few months, but I didn't know if you'd want to hop on with me till it shuts down tonight."
I dipped my head, feeling a little embarrassed to ask. Truthfully, I was on the fence about playing tonight at all. If I did, I sure didn't want to do it alone. She must have noticed the sad tone of my voice and responded as sweet as ever, "Of course, love. We spent a lot of time and made a lot of memories together in there. How about we hop on right after dinner tonight so we can spend some time doing one more walkthrough of the base."
I couldn't help but smile at her ever-present thoughtfulness, "Alright, honey, it's a date." We both smiled and finished our meal in silence then went our separate ways to work.
My hand fumbled in my pocket, still thinking about the small box that's been burning a hole in there for the last few weeks. I had been planning a nice dinner tonight since it's a Friday and it would be the first time in a while that we both had our Saturday off work. After dropping so much on the ring, I managed to catch plenty of overtime shifts the last two weeks to save up for a nice dinner date. When I heard about Yggdrasil shutting down, I was torn. I already had the reservation and planned such a wonderful night.
Hearing her excitement about going back to play one last time, it made me feel a little less bad about canceling tonight's outing. Well, at least I know she ain't going anywhere. I'm sure our schedules will line up again soon anyway. Those pleasant thoughts kept me going for the last few hours of work before I could see my sweet lady again.
Dinner came and went rather quickly after work, we decided to make some microwave meals so we could spend plenty of time in our old base. We were both grinning ear to ear from excitement, I hardly remember the last time we played together.
Before we hopped in our chairs, I grabbed her hand and twirled her into a kiss. I held it for a moment, relishing the sweet cinnamon lip gloss for a few seconds, "Goodness, baby what was that all about?"
I couldn't help but grin at her response and said, "I'm just really glad you wanted to join me tonight, I love you," and laid another one on her.
We broke it off and she said, "I love you too, Ryan. Now come on already, let's get in there so I can see how our old base is doing!" With a smile and a nod, we both took a seat at our computers and threw on the headsets. After a quick jolt, we were back in the game.
I chose my character, Uracan, and took one last admiring look at his form. He was what's called a Fire Genasi. It's a type of human-looking elemental, at least that's what Yggdrasil's lore called them. I chose that race because I had always been a big fan of those old tabletop RPGs. Of course, the lore surrounding Genasi was different for those but that's neither here nor there. Giving him a good onceover, I admired my character sculpting handiwork.
His red skin contrasted the black hair, eyebrows, and beard. He had a nice, even face with a smoothly slanted jawline. In contrast to most players, I didn't design mine to be the paragon of the male physique, but he looked athletic at the very least. Just a six-foot tall, 180-pound, body stacking machine. That thought brought me to look at his equipment, divine class gear in the form of what looks like basic, western styled leather clothes and snakeskin cowboy boots with metal plating and a thick, leather duster.
In reality, the leather clothes were laced with red dragon scales and had scarletite knee plates, shoulder pads, breast plates, and knuckle plates. The duster was equally impressive, made from the thick skin of the mythical wolf and incredibly deadly world enemy, Fenrir. The boots were made by grinding Jormungandr's boss fight too many times to count.
Last but certainly not least, each hip held my pride and joy, my world item. Well items, but they were technically considered one world item. The Lord and Lady, a pair of .45 caliber revolvers, 6 shots. My back-up weapons, an 8-shot divine class .44 magnum called Big Iron and a star silver bowie knife called Big Daddy, were holstered just out of view behind the duster on my lower back.
I pressed the start button and my vision shifted, bringing my fantasy home into view, The Burning Maze. Before our guild, The Ruined Immortals, The Burning Maze was an incredibly challenging puzzle dungeon in Muspelheim and was the home of a fire worm matriarch.
At the time, my fire-resistant build was helpful to keep our group alive. Usually, I would take a back seat in fights and take a mid-range position, but for that fight I was basically a backup tank to help our buddy, Lithus. Man, I wish he could see this one last time. Here's to you, Luke.
An air of sadness washed over me, albeit briefly. Before I took the time to fully admire the architecture, Rose's character came into view. A smile crept over my face, more like a smile in my mind since in game avatars can't show facial expressions, when I remembered first meeting her almost 12 years ago.
"Hey, Ura, I was thinking about hitting the auction house later. One of my buddies told me prices are pretty low today. Might get a good deal!"
I sent a thumbs up emoji, "Alright, then, Jonesy. I'll send a message to Lithus and tell him to meet us there."
He nodded in reply while I reached out to Lithus, "Hey Luke, wanna meet us at the auction house on Niflheim? Jonesy said prices are low today." With a positive reply, I signaled Jonesy and a [Gate] opened right next to us.
Except, it wasn't just Lithus that came through. Pale blue tinted skin, dark brown hair, and a pair of dark blue eyes met mine. Judging by the golden glowing spear with religious markings all over it and the light blue and gold robes, they were probably a priestess of some kind.
While I inspected the female character to determine her race, Lithus spoke, "Hey y'all, this is Irinith. She was wandering around outside one of the cities on Asgard when I got jumped by a bunch of PKers. She helped heal and defend me with some summons. Irinith, this is Lithus and Uracan." He pointed at each of us as we were introduced, and a smile emoji popped up above her head.
I then had the pleasure of listening to the most beautiful voice I've ever heard say, "It's a pleasure, boys. As he said, I'm Irinith, my friends call me Iri. I heard y'all are going shopping?"
Oh, the sweet sound of a southern woman. I was stuck in a daze, so Lithus responded, "Yup! We're headed there now if you'd like to join?" With a nod from her, we set off.
Next thing I know we're partying up almost every day, watching each other's backs, clearing out The Burning Maze, and building a home together, in the game at least. It didn't take long for that inseparable relationship to extend outside the game. All it took was one meeting IRL and I knew I had to have her.
The smile faded and I looked over her avatar now, compared to that old memory. The body was still the same, a Kalashtar healer/summoner build. A Kalashtar is something like a union between a humanoid race and a spirit or ghost.
There were a lot of benefits as a healer and summoner brought on by her higher racial levels. Being part spirit allowed her to, often, avoid damage completely by becoming incorporeal for a short period of time. While she couldn't cast as well during that period, it saved her ass, and by proxy our own asses, dozens of times.
Since our first meeting, she had gotten a slight upgrade from that golden spear and blue and gold robes. She now donned divine class robes that matched her eyes, albeit a bit darker shade of blue with some silver and gold stitching. She had a pair of light leather slippers with the same accents to match her new spear. The spear was the color of the abyss, a deep blue that was almost black with similar silver and gold inlays to complete her armor and weapon set. The weapon was almost twice her height, about nine feet long with a razor-sharp point and a blunt, rounded end that rested on the ground when she held it.
A heart emoji above her head drug me out of my observations, "Hey there hot stuff," followed by a hearty laugh from her avatar at her own joke. I responded with the same emoji and put out my arm for her. She grabbed the crook of my elbow with a nod, so I took that as my cue. We started our tour walking toward the towering stone doors in the basalt cliff face at the heart of the lava lakes of Muspelheim.
The intricately carved doors slowly swung open in response to our approach. The first of the Maze's six floors, which also served as the top floor, was considered the most dangerous and troublesome to invaders. Even a large group of max level players would find it difficult to pass the floor's traps and guardian.
Speaking of guardian, the first floor's bowed as we walked in, the same as every NPC did in response to a guild member who approached. I took in the wonderful design of my creation, Xerxes. He shared a name with an old king of an even older kingdom, but the similarities ended there as the ancient red dragon bowed deeply with his maw touching the stone floor.
He was programmed to stay in his dragon form whenever he was stationed on his floor. His scales glittered and shone due to the braziers spread around the room. A few battle scars, cosmetic of course, stood glaringly across his snout and back.
I spoke while I admired my work, "I know it's a little strange, but I want to have a sort of sending off moment with the NPCs. Is it weird if I have some of them follow us on our tour?"
A cute laugh was Rose's response and she said, "It is a little weird, after all they wouldn't know the difference. But I understand the sentiment, let's bring them all along."
I beamed with pride at his design one last time, and I gave him one of the few voice commands for NPCs, "Follow." He stood tall in response, his heavy steps shaking the ground as we explored the namesake of the guild hall.
The Maze was difficult when we first cleared it, taking us half a dozen near death experiences to get the puzzles right. After hours of exploration and a few happy accidents leading to some secret discoveries, we moved on to the deeper parts of the dungeon. Our diligence was rewarded and being the first group to conquer The Maze meant it became our guild base.
Protection was cheap in the early days of our new guild. The Burning Maze left most raiding parties at about a quarter of their original manpower by the time they made it through the puzzles and traps. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. A redesign was needed after some information about the puzzles and secret paths were leaked online.
Each member of the guild spent months researching and studying ways we could better defend the base. We started getting attacked more and more often by players who were previously too stupid to brave the maze. Now they were just waltzing through the secret paths to bypass the puzzles and traps. Those months of study cost us a lot of money replacing traps and mobs.
Lithus and I eventually figured out how to reprogram the maze and its traps. Using a bit of procedural programming we learned online, we gave the Maze's environment the capability to shift in response to any hostile who enters the dungeon. In addition, we added some environmental effects that were made cheaper by the simple fact that it was the same as the burning air effects of Muspelheim just outside the Maze.
The only downside to the shifting maze layout was that a player with sufficiently high stealth would not trigger the mechanism, so the maze would stay in its original layout. Luckily no one like that would try and break in alone, so a difficult situation like that had never presented itself.
The dark brown stone walls didn't shift as we passed down the path we'd both memorized by this point. Xerxes tailed us through the wide channels with high roofs. We passed numerous hired and homemade NPCs programmed to patrol the floor and provide support to the ancient beast.
The various collection of smaller red dragons, shadow demons, hanzos, and fire worms bowed as we passed. "Wow," Rose spoke with an astonished voice, "I almost forgot how magnificent this place was! I can't wait to see my sweet baby again! How has she been?"
I laughed in my microphone and replied, "You'll see her soon, we'll be at the third floor in a bit."
She leaned her digital head on my shoulder as we pressed on. The set of doors to the second floor, much too small for Xerxes, came into view. I used a menu command, and Xerxes shifted into his humanoid form. His skin and hair color were much like my own though he was just a bit taller than my avatar. Of course, he carried a different set of equipment in the form of a pair of blood-red short swords and an impenetrable set of star silver plate armor. Bypassing the puzzle as guild members, the adamantine doors slid in opposite directions as we approached.
After a quick shift, we were moved to the second floor's instance. We decided to pull a complete 180 on the previous floor's environment and bring the blistering cold winds of Jotunheim to anyone who made it this far. The ground of this floor was a collection of constantly moving sheets of ice that rested on a freezing sea while snow and ice were constantly churned by an unending blizzard.
The guardian of this floor, Sable, had yet to show herself. As if on cue, some of the massive ice sheets parted and the aberrant creation of Lithus made herself known. This grand beast, a frozen leviathan, rose from the depths and bowed its head. The creature was gigantic, almost 250 feet in length, rivaling Xerxes' true form. Its tail was split into dozens of thin appendages, and each were roughly 30 feet in length. They were fully articulating, granting Sable the ability to grab enemies and drag them to the frozen depths. Her thick upper body widened with a pair of shoulders supporting two massive, clawed arms. Upward upon her neck sat a humanoid head, with swept back, dark eyes and an unnaturally large maw filled with razors for teeth.
Since she couldn't shift into another form, we couldn't bring her along on our trip to the throne room. As we walked away, she returned to her coded path and wandered the frosty abyss. Rose and I passed several sheets that housed huge buildings sculpted out of ice. In and around the buildings wandered Sable's back up. The frost giants bowed in the same fashion as the previous NPCs.
The first of these "villages" housed their commander, a slightly taller frost giant Lithus also hand-crafted. He was the only one able to communicate telepathically with Sable and served as the "commander" of the frost giant forces on the surface. Henrion was in command of dozens of frost giants, each around level 50 with himself at level 60. He wore practically the same sparse clothing as all the blue-skinned, 20ft tall behemoths, which consisted of various furs and pelts from large creatures and thick leather shoes and gloves.
In contrast to the typical great club or long sword the size of a tree the giants carried; Henrion carried a personally crafted adamantine mace with dragon bone spikes coming out in five different directions. As Sable's advisor and telepathic liaison, Henrion served in her stead, "Follow." After a quick bow and a long walk, the frozen cave leading to the door to the third floor came into view through the blurry white storm.
Typically, guilds liked to have a place in their base to test their skills and practice with different character builds in varying environments. A creation of Rose, we took our first steps into the third floor's sprawling tropical environment. Sandy banks near deep ponds, large patches of huge trees, thick brush and tall grass, a few large clearings, tall rock faces, and humidity that would likely suffocate us if we could breathe.
"Oh, this is so beautiful, baby. I missed this place so much! Where do you think Shades is? She's tough to get a lock on." Her statement was followed by her sweet laugh.
That question was quickly answered after we walked a bit further in and saw the dark fur of the panther goddess, Shades. Only a woman like mine could take the title of panther goddess and think the name Shades would fit that title. In her defense, Shades' appearance matched the name. Turning in our direction, the black coat was greatly contrasted by the white patches of fur encircling Shades' eyes.
She bowed to us, then began to follow our motley crew with a simple command. We passed some of the ponds, filled with elemental piranhas, dense canopies that held the glowing eyes of spiritual monkeys, and the crests of the jungle raptors' spines were barely hidden by the tall grass.
I couldn't help but comment on the floor's natural beauty, "Even though we've never seen a forest or anything like it in person, you did a great job capturing a natural beauty even holofilms can't depict." Her response was another heart emoji as we ventured on past the wildlife down to the fourth floor, Jonesy's creation.
"Wow…" though it didn't show on her avatar, I'm sure Rose's mouth would've been agape in that moment, "Jonesy really did have the touch of an artist." She was right, this place is so trance-inducing.
The fourth floor held the salt flats. In the far distance sat red rock mesas that served as barriers, basically the "walls" of the floor. The ground of the floor was so smooth and pure, it created a reflective surface that mirrored the starry night sky, which depicted the actual time of day. The only other creature on the fourth floor besides us and the guardians stood tall and unflinching in the center of the flats. Torment.
If the name didn't give enough about this monster, a closer look at the beast would. A mountain of a construct made of alloyed prismatic metals, giving him a bright green glow that pulsed against the reflective floor. He was built to look like a 15-foot-tall man wearing full plate armor. His hands rested on the pommel of his weapon of choice that was touching the ground at its point. A 9-foot-long great sword made of celestial uranium that glowed even brighter than Torment's armor. His imposing presence would be terrifying on its own, but that wasn't even the most dangerous weapon in Torment's arsenal. Any non-member of the guild within 150 feet of this monster would take a debilitating amount of radiation damage over time. Most spells had trouble reaching that far, which is exactly why Torment was trusted to guard this floor alone. If you stepped into his area of effect, your health bar melted away.
Any skill, super tier spell, or ability that could feasibly take him down would likely have been used already by any raiding party. Not that anyone ever got this far. I laughed and spoke quietly to myself, "He is a titan like no other, wish you could've seen him one more time, Jonesy. Follow." Still mesmerized by the stars and with a new addition to the crew, we slowly made our way to the fifth and sixth floors.
The first four floors were made to repel any invaders. For that reason, the fifth and sixth floors acted as a place to craft items, fool around, plan quests or raids, and relax. The fifth floor was bustling with maids of several different humanoid and heteromorphic races running simple coded tasks like cleaning, carrying platters to and from the kitchen, and basic upkeep. The maids were led by the twins, a butler pair designed by Lithus and I. They were made to be the ultimate caretakers, worthy to serve any king or queen.
My creation, a male half-orc half-elf, was named Abbott. Following his programming, he was by my side the moment we stepped into the first great hall of the fifth floor. He was a bit taller than my character, at six and a half feet tall with a sharp face, brown hair with a few gray strands, light green skin, and vibrant green eyes. Stoic as ever, he automatically began following after he bowed. He wore a clean black suit and carried himself with pride.
What stood out from his appearance was his weapon. A lever action .300 magnum with a leather holster rode on his back. If there was ever trouble, he was programmed to quickly change into his combat armor and jump into the fray.
His sister, Cecilia, wore a similar outfit, with a similarly out of place set of weapons. Her dual daggers rested on her lower back, completely contrasting the look of her black and white suit. It totally matches her combat armor, though, so who am I to judge?
I took in the details of her appearance for the last time, the same brown hair as her brother, skin just a tad darker shade of green, and a gentler face with blue eyes. Since Lithus wasn't here, she was programmed to follow the next highest-ranking guild member in the Maze. She bowed and stuck to Rose's, well Irinith's, hip as we explored the last two floors.
Giant pools, tubs, saunas, the kitchen, the maids' rooms, forges, magical, and alchemical crafting rooms, you name it and the fifth floor had it. Other than the crafting related rooms, the other rooms were just decorative flavor added to breathe a little life and realism into our fantasy home. As much as we tried, we couldn't find a way to program the NPCs to actually use the facilities available on their floor, so we had to settle with flavor text in their backgrounds to give them a little more realism. Only a few of the guild members really cared for the roleplaying aspect of the game, so Lithus and I had to personally write a great deal of the flavor text for these maids. We both knew it didn't actually matter, but we're nerds, what can I say?
The fifth floor was our own little town of goods and services filled with residents dressed in maid outfits or suits and ties. I smiled inwardly, We really went all out making all these maids. There must be at least thirty of them and every single one I've seen looks different from the last.
My thoughts ended when Rose spoke up, "You wanna go see our rooms real quick or something? It's already 11:45 so we need to hustle and get to the sixth floor."
That snapped me out of my reminiscing, "Shit good call, honey. Let's just go to the throne room and hang out there. You should have time to run by your room first if you want. I was planning on grabbing the guild weapon before heading to the throne room anyway."
She groaned a disapproving tone, so I tried my best to calm her nerves, "I know we never used it before because it wasn't safe, so I understand your hesitation, but it's ten minutes. It feels right to have it there this one time."
I received my answer with another heart emoji and a sweet voice, "I know, baby I'm not too worried about it. You go grab it from the office and I'm gonna go take one last look at my room." I sent a thumbs up emoji, Glad I kept it clean all this time.
Some areas, like bedrooms, naturally deteriorate in guild bases if no occupants are there so I had to spend time in everyone's room every few days so they didn't get all messed up. We went our separate ways, she turned down a hallway to the right just before the throne room and I went left.
There she is. Since the first guild master was Lithus before he passed, the guild weapon was a short sword. It was much more than a simple short sword, though. The pommel had a glowing yellow gem inlaid, Mimir's Eye. This allowed the user, even a straight melee class with no magic ability, one daily use of a 9th tier scrying spell. Moving up past the scarletite handle wrapped in fine leather, the scarletite guard had small red gems on either side. One boosted fire resistance and the other increased fire-based damage.
The blade was made of celestial uranium that hummed with a faint green glow. It was black as the abyss, with thin green veins running all through the blade. Magical runes shone brightly along its length that applied several buffs to the wielder and several debuffs to any target struck by it.
It was our pride and joy, I really miss you, Luke. Despite my avatar's face, I felt the pressure of tears behind my eyes. With a deep breath, I grabbed the Blade of The Ruined Immortals.
Irinith was already waiting for me when I finally arrived in the throne room. It was a round room of the finest tiger marble. A red circular rug sat in the middle of the room, emblazoned with a black icon that was our guild logo. The shape was that of a symmetrical sword pointing up surrounded by two concentric rings and a pair of pointed wings on either side. On the edge of the rug, evenly spaced, were 20 pillars of the same orange granite with black veins. Each pillar had a red banner with a unique black logo.
Walking across the rug, I inspected them all. My chest tightened seeing one, Lithus. Like our guild logo it had a sword, pointed down this time, with a halo above the pommel. It was simple and sincere, just like Luke. The sound of Rose humming as I approached brought my attention to the throne. Keeping with the style of the room, it was built with a Greco-Roman type of architecture formed from the same tiger granite as the rest of the structures.
"Hey baby, did you remember I had this in my room?" She drew my attention toward the floor where an incredibly fluffy cat was sitting. His name was Gregory, and he sat a bit taller than a normal house cat. His blood red fur was contrasted heavily by bright yellow eyes.
"Gregory, such a sweet boy. Was he from the Halloween event?" I heard a meow after I said his name and laughed, Oh yeah, we messed with his settings so now he meows when he hears his name.
She laughed along with me, "I must have spent half the day running a side quest to get him. He's just soooo cute!" The excitement in her voice filled my heart, and she continued, "Well? Take a seat, your highness," her sarcastic voice did not get past me.
I took my place on the throne and surveyed our retinue, "Kneel," the guardians immediately responded to my command.
She hopped her avatar up on the left arm of the chair then put an arm around me, "I'm glad we came back, Ryan. This place brings back so many memories," her voice hitched, "I should've spent more time here with you these past few months. I'm sorry I left all this to you, I'm so sorry I…"
I reached my left hand up to her leg and gave her a gentle pat, I heard the sniffles when I said, "Don't beat yourself up, please," I felt my throat tightening up as well, "Just be here with me, okay? You're here now and that's all that matters. I love you."
After a couple more sniffles she put her hand over mine, "I love you too, Ryan."
I rubbed her leg a bit and looked at the time, "Well, it'll be a few moments now. Thanks again for being here with me, I can't begin to tell you what that means to me."
After a brief pause, her reply was just a soft and warm squeeze of my hand. Wait… Soft? Warm? What the hell?
I frantically looked toward Rose when a gruff and completely unfamiliar voice spoke up during my confusion, "My lord? Lady? Is there something wrong?"
