There are many things people talk about casually, other things that they talk about seriously, however there are also things that are not talked about at all. A fairly recent war, won through means most would consider unethical would certainly fall into that third category.

Of course I can only speak for this world, and as you might have noticed, it is a bit different from yours but I think at least in this regard there are certain similarities. I would have preferred not to rudely interrupt my own storytelling and address you directly but that would have required me to make people say things they wouldn't say. Instead I have to tell you directly what happened in this world roughly thirty-five years ago.

At some point in the past, multiple countries started a war, why is not relevant, just pick any of the common justifications for war and you'd be as close to the truth as any historian. It must have been a very good justification though, since not before long the entire planet was up in arms. This war went through the usual things that a well-justified war goes through and just one year after it started, two sides had formed. At that point the more powerful of the sides would have predictably crushed the weaker side and won the war. However, it did not play out that way.

There were two reasons for this, their names were Aaron Graves and Lilith Graves, a happily married couple that also happened to be the world's leading developers and sellers of weapons of all kinds. Unfortunately for the stronger side, they chose to exclusively supply the weaker side, because what it lacked in fighting strength, it had in money and desperation.

It was their involvement that evened out the power balance, at first. Then, two more years into the war, the scales tipped in the favor of the formerly-weaker side. It was when Aaron and Lilith developed a new combat agent, colorfully dubbed "Fairy Dust", which no existing technology could protect against and caused death in a variety of disturbing, yet fascinating ways.

The Graves family had been important figures in the war before this event but after it they had become synonymous with it, or rather with the destruction that was now being unleashed on the opposing side. Speaking of the Graves family, it was also around this time when it gained an additional member in the form a suspiciously quiet newborn girl. Back then nobody knew that the parents' lives were on a short clock due to exposure of early versions of Fairy Dust.

It took another two years and the near-complete destruction of the now-weaker side to officially attain victory. This victory also marked the day when the Graves family grew yet again, or would have grown had Aaron not succumbed to the late effects of his own weapon and had Lilith not died in childbirth for the same reason.

The end of the war left the few parts of the world that were still intact looking forward to a future of prosperity and technological advancement. The remaining parts had a much bleaker future to look towards. The end of the war also left many intelligence agents and spies without a job, some got themselves new jobs, others kept doing what they did before, one particular group evolved into a certain intelligence agency that you may be quite familiar with. Though perhaps most relevantly, the war left behind a pair of siblings who would become quite important later in their lives, perhaps even more important than their parents, you may be quite familiar with them too.

Now that I am done rudely interrupting my own storytelling, I think it's best that you should see the reason I told you all this for yourself.

Just as the Guard Captain had said, the lockdown was lifted on the next day. It was surprising to Jack that only a handful of people waited at the gates when they opened. Perhaps the others wanted to collect the compensation that was promised to them for the forced extension of their stay. Jack didn't care for it, he just wanted to get as far away from that city as quickly as he could, however he would have to meet up with Alice first. Of course he could have just logged out, but he preferred to do that in the relative safety of the quarry.

It was early in the morning when Jack left Rockhaven, the guards that had been posted at the gates nodded him goodbye, perhaps Bedrock had told them about him, though it was most likely just a gesture of politeness.

Jack had arranged his meeting with Alice in a nearby forest, in fact it was the same forest he had come through when he was travelling with Nathaniel. All he had to do was follow the road.

While walking Jack thought about his past with Alice, partially out of nostalgia but mostly to push back the mind-numbing questions that got harder to ignore by the minute.

Alice had an uncanny talent for getting people to say things they shouldn't say, which was also how they met. At some point early in Jack's higher education, she had tried to use this talent on Jack, it would have worked too had Jack not caught on. This chance meeting soon developed into a profitable business relation, Alice would first find out juicy things about people, then Jack would use his, then-modest but rapidly improving, hacking skills to follow up on those things.

Working with Alice wasn't always easy, many times Jack had to discard the information she had gotten him. What was an easy target in Alice's eyes, was often something Jack wanted to stay away from for various reasons. The reasons reached from a high probability of being found out up to moral standards. When Jack didn't want a piece of information, Alice simply sold it to someone else, allowing her to at least profit in some manner.

This went on for several years without incidents, in no small part due to Jack's caution. However, one fateful day Alice returned from her nightly information hunt with a grin more devious than anything Jack had seen before. Back then he had suspected that whatever she had dug up was bigger than anything they had done before.

When he questioned Alice about her discovery, she told him that a drunken woman in a bar had told her about a particular research project that she had been a part of. Despite his reservations, this brain-computer-interface Alice told him about had been too intriguing to pass up on. Jack also silently admitted to himself that his morals had eroded quite a bit during the time he had worked with Alice.

Once Jack got to work on digging into this lead, he discovered that the research team had been successful, against all odds. He had also found and joined their server, even if that meant agreeing to their terms. After he had logged in for the first time he immediately realized that this was too big for him alone. He found help in the form of Q, who apparently had an a bit more personal connection to the matter.

The rest was history, history that ended up with Jack sitting on a fallen log in the middle of a forest, trying not to think about what he saw until he was out of the server. This was made significantly easier by a small meteorite impacting a few steps ahead of him. Of course this was not actually a meteorite but could have been mistaken for one, in reality it was Alice.

In contrast to Jack, Alice looked quite different on the server compared to the real world. The one constant between the real world and the server was Alice's face, on first glance it was quite ordinary but the longer you looked at her the harder it got to say anything but the truth. In the real world this was her only extraordinary feature, which suited her well, being easily recognized was a hindrance in her line of work. The server was a different story, here her face was framed by hair so unnaturally red that it could have been mistaken for flames when in motion. Jack found this to be quite fitting, it was a good reflection of her personality. Alice was currently wearing a full outfit of black leather, a bit too on-the-nose for Jack but again, it was quite fitting for Alice.

Alice asked: "Did you get him?"

Jack sighed. This wouldn't be fun to explain. "No, if I had gotten him, I'd be dead, and I mean real life dead."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Alice asked.

Jack said: "To put it simply, that enforcer Fire shouted about in the arena, she exists and she can actually kill people who have a direct connection. Without a client protecting me I just get my mind eaten if I try anything."

Alice thought for a moment. "Leave the trying to me then. Also, are you sure that she can kill you?"

Jack stood up from the log. "I've seen a pretty impressive demonstration and I'd rather not take the chance. I like being alive, thank you."

Alice lightly punched his shoulder. "Someone's irritated."

Jack said: "I've seen some things that will take a while to forget, I'll tell you once we're out of here. Believe me, I would like nothing more than to tell you everything right now but I need to be sure that I'm not being listened to."

Alice seemed to ignore his plight, instead she asked: "Where will they go next? I'd like to say a few words to that enforcer of theirs."

Jack knew better than to try to stop Alice. "They'll come by here in a while most likely. From what Fire said they're quite battered, at least him and the slaves he escaped with."

Alice asked: "They're with him too?"

"It seems like it." Jack said.

"Even better."

Jack was tempted to shake his head, but didn't. If Alice knew what he knew she wouldn't be so eager to face them. This Shadow seemed immensely powerful, exactly how powerful was to be seen. However, Alice was also quite a force to be reckoned with.

Jack and Alice spent the following hours sitting on the fallen tree, eating what remained of Jack's rations, namely some dried fruit that had tolerated the cold remarkably well. Many different travelers passed in both directions, the ones they were looking for were not among them.

Shortly before nightfall they saw a light through the trees, its pure white color indicated that it was of magical nature. It was remarkable how quickly Jack had gotten used to the existence of magic on the server. They slowly crept up to the road to see if their waiting had paid off. A group of six was walking along the road, it was them.

Fire was walking ahead of the group, his movements looked quite sluggish, indicating that he was still recovering from his injuries, he was carrying an odd, but impressive looking axe. Right behind Fire were the four people he had escaped with, their names eluded Jack in the moment. The woman wearing robes seemed to have similar problems to Fire. Two men wearing black armor carried a third, who seemed to be unable to walk on his own. At the tail end was Shadow, it seemed like she was on her way to reverting back to her normal appearance but wasn't quite there yet, especially the shadows she cast didn't match her form at all.

Alice whispered: "Let's follow them, I don't think they'll go far like that."

Jack nodded, albeit hesitantly. They waited a few minutes until they went back on the road, always taking care to stay just far enough to still be able to see the light.

Alice was right, not long after they had started following them, the group went off the road, seemingly looking for a place to spend the night. Jack and Alice lurked in the shadows until they could be sure that all of them were sleeping.

Alice said: "Really? She's the enforcer? She looks a bit weird but, seriously? I was expecting someone bigger, she's tiny."

Jack suppressed all counterarguments, they were on the server, Alice had a client, he did not. Nothing he could say would dissuade her from attacking. At least she was safe from dying for real, that was if Fire had told the truth. Then again, if Shadow could kill them either way, why were they still alive? Jack decided that in this matter Fire's word could be trusted.

When Jack looked back to Alice, she was already holding a freshly spawned diamond sword. She said: "You stay back a bit, the kill aura doesn't discriminate."

Alice went ahead through the trees, Jack decided that three meters were an appropriate distance and followed soon after.

The group had set up camp in a small clearing, they were lying on a circle of mats around the now-dimmed light source. Something moved in the corner of Jack's vision, although it only seemed to be a shadow cast by the light source. Alice was meanwhile walking over to the sleeping Shadow, sword raised above, ready to strike.

Alice's sword moved downwards quickly, then stopped shortly before making contact with Shadow's neck. Before Jack could wonder why she had stopped, he felt something coiling around his wrists and ankles, holding them in place. When Jack looked over to Alice, he only got a helpless stare in return. Alice had been firmly bound and lifted off the ground by something he couldn't see. Then Jack looked behind her, to the treeline where he saw something he wished he would not be able to call familiar. On the trees he could see the shadows of writhing tendrils… or hands? What they were was not important, what was important was that they were currently holding the two of them captive, though they were a lot more aggressive when it came to restraining Alice, they even seemed to be holding her mouth shut.

He then heard something that only vaguely resembled the voice of a woman, it seemed to come from everywhere at once but at the same time sounded uncomfortably close.

It said: "Nobody hurts her."

There was more movement in the corner of Jack's vision, this time on the other side. His eyes darted over and saw how Shadow slowly rose up from the ground.

Jack asked: "What did you do to us?"

Shadow seemed to take her time with her answer, first giving a good look to the struggling Alice. "I didn't do anything." Shadow said with a smile. "I assume that this is the infamous Alice? It must be hard, always keeping her from doing something that she might regret, right Jack?"

Jack refused to answer, anything he said might make the situation even worse.

Shadow continued: "You see, my shadow is quite protective of me. She doesn't like it when people sneak up to me at night to murder me in my sleep. Consider yourself lucky that she didn't kill you outright. I'll be doing that myself this time."

Jack's eyes went wide. "Wait! No, no, no, no!"

"Not you, you haven't actually done anything." Shadow said, then looked over to Alice, whose struggling had gone from angry to panicked. "She on the other hand…"

Before Jack knew what was happening, several dark crystalline spikes erupted from the ground below Alice, impaling her all over. In a strange moment of distanced clarity Jack wondered where all the blood was. Even after the shadows let go of Alice's dead body, not a single drop of blood was spilled. Jack remained where he was, alive but still restrained.

Shadow turned to him. "Now that she's done with, there are a couple of things that you might want to know."

Around Jack the others slowly woke up from their sleep, unsurprising with the commotion they had caused.

The shortest of the armored men asked: "Who's that and why is he standing like that?"

Fire answered him: "Ambigious, that's Jack, one of the hackers sent here to track me down. That over there was his partner Alice who was supposed to pick him up from here but decided to attack us instead."

Jack didn't even question how Fire knew this, though it probably wasn't too hard to put together for someone like him, even without exact knowledge of his mission.

Fire said: "I mentioned that I have some things to tell you, this is the perfect opportunity to do so. Not only do I owe my friends an explanation but I also think it's time to let Q know who he's really dealing with."

The robed woman said: "So, maybe start with how you didn't die from that poison."

Shadow said: "Originally our plans for Rockhaven really were to get the Axe as quickly as possible, however that changed when you told me about the interference leaking from the eye. Usually we could have ignored the issue but since Carol had already linked her mind to the eye, she had turned into a ticking time bomb."

Fire took over for Shadow. "What further complicated the issue was that we finally tracked down the leader of that conspiracy and found out that he was going to make a move soon. Shadow infiltrated his order by posing as a traitor to the Eye-and-Claws. As for how I got myself poisoned there is a simple explanation, I didn't."

Another armored man said: "That's what my experiments said too, Shineroot essence can't harm Mencur-Besh."

"Exactly," Fire nodded. "That is why I had a capsule with deathsleep poison in my mouth, which I used to fake my death."

The man apparently called Ambigious said: "Hold on a minute, this is reaching levels of complexity that shouldn't be legal. Why exactly did you need to do that?"

Shadow spoke this time: "Of course we could have just easily killed the leader of the conspiracy or even Carol if she became problematic but think of what that would have done to our negotiations for the Axe. The murder of a high-ranking mage and a tower keeper within that short timeframe and the resulting investigations would have delayed us by weeks. So we thought that it was best to create a controlled chaos that we could quickly resolve."

The last armored man was still lying on his back, he said: "Well, you didn't actually resolve things, we did that."

Shadow said: "Which was the plan all along, admittedly a plan hatched in only a few hours of time. You did an admirable job with your investigation, I didn't even have to nudge you along once. The only hint we gave you was the location Unchosen received when he came near the eye, we had a Mencur-Besh stationed nearby to send it at the correct time."

The man who seemed to be called Unchosen said: "It did seem a bit too convenient when TehLulz returned and told us what he had found there."

Fire said: "Sadly our plan was a failure in the end, Carol making contact with the eye was what we hoped to avoid, unfortunately Shadow was busy executing the conspiracy leader at that exact time. On the bright side, nothing of value was lost, Carol's mind must have gotten warped fairly quickly so her connection only caused minimal interference."

Jack decided to speak up. "That's nice to hear but so far none of that would interest Q in the slightest."

Shadow said snidely: "Excuse us for addressing the important people first."

A snicker could be heard around the clearing, though it didn't seem to be coming from any of the people around the light source. Was that the thing Shadow had mentioned earlier, her own shadow?

Fire turned to Jack and said: "You are still correct, the parts that would interest you are yet to follow. First of all, I allowed myself to be captured."

"What?" Jack said, to his own surprise in unison with Shadow.

Fire explained: "In order to construct the Ban Hammer I need the help of other players. NPCs wouldn't work since they ultimately do not have a free enough will to reliably help me. Luckily your slave mine provided me with exactly what I needed: A large amount of people that were guaranteed to be players with plenty of motivation to go against you. It was easy to 'accidentally' stumble into your territory and get captured."

Jack expected Shadow to be angry but she just sounded confused. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Fire said: "Mainly because you would have tried to stop me. I know how much you want to protect me but that was a risk I needed to take. I must say, so far we have been quite lucky with our risks."

Shadow nodded. "I understand. It isn't easy, but I understand. Thank you Peter."

Unchosen said: "Wait a minute. Peter is your real name, right Fire?"

Fire said: "Yes."

Unchosen continued: "While we are talking about crazy coincidences and astronomically low odds, you wouldn't by any chance be connected to a bus accident of some kind, right?"

Fire looked genuinely surprised, something Jack had never thought he would see. Fire asked: "How would you know that?"

Unchosen said: "I read about it in a newspaper and a few months later I decided to do some research into what you did now, only to find a grand total of nothing past the date that newspaper was published. I even kept the article, they had your name in there and it hadn't been chanced. I wasn't able to find out anything more but it was so weird that it kind of stuck with me. I've also asked this question to every Peter I ever came across."

Fire said: "That was probably because that was also the day where I dropped that identity, or rather the day where I found out who I actually was."

"You'll have to explain that a bit more." Ambigious said, Jack couldn't help but agree.

Fire explained: "Up until that day we had grown up under a different last name. We weren't raised by my parents but by my uncle, I had never questioned it but that day he told me the entire story. First I found out that my last name wasn't Miller like I had thought, it was Graves."

Unchosen sharply inhaled but said nothing. A distant bell rung in Jack's mind, he had come across that name in some classified documents in a server he had hacked once.

He asked: "Not Graves like those people from the war, right?

Fire said: "No, Graves exactly like those people from the war. Aaron and Lilith Graves were my parents."

Unchosen turned to the others, who seemed quite confused. He asked: "They don't teach you about them in school, do they? Or about the war in general?"

Ambigious and the robed woman shook their heads.

Unchosen said: "Figures. I have the questionable pleasure of remembering them. I had just finished my chemistry studies when the war started. Got drafted as a medic, I still remember the things those two demons invented. Luckily I was on their side so I only had to treat the occasional collateral damage but still… Couldn't bring myself to not pursue medicine after that."

Shadow said: "Hey, most demons are alright, our parents were not."

Unchosen said: "I know you said that you two are siblings but in retrospect that doesn't make sense. The Graves family only ever had one child and that's Fire."

Shadow explained: "Almost correct. I was born during the war so they never had a birth certificate or anything else for me. I officially never existed. It also wasn't helped by the fact that for the first decades of my life I suffered from a psychological condition that caused me to experience irrational fear of anyone but my brother."

Ambigious asked: "So, that makes you Shadow Graves? That's quite a name."

Shadow said: "No, I'm still just Shadow. No papers, no last name and I'm not going out of my way to adopt the name of parents I never properly got to know."

Fire continued his explanation: "Finding out about my heritage was… interesting, if anything it distracted me from my recent loss. My uncle also told me that the vast financial imperium left by my parents would also fall to me once I was ready. Back then I didn't feel ready in the slightest, so instead I went headfirst into higher education."

Shadow said: "They hadn't called his class the best in the country for nothing. He breezed through whatever the universities could throw at him."

Fire nodded. "Eventually a professor I had worked with contacted me again, claiming he had heard of an interesting project involving a brain-computer-interface that was running low on funding. I was immediately intrigued, I approached them and became their financial supporter. My hope was to finally find some kind of cure for Shadow, we had tried everything there was and if anything it had made matters worse."

Jack said: "Huh, so that's how you came in contact with them. Our job would be a lot easier if that hadn't happened."

Fire said: "In a way, yes. You and Alice would still be doing your small-scale stuff and living quite comfortably off it. I was what helped the scientists achieve their breakthrough, well technically it was my parents. One day during my studies I decided to go through their extensive collection of weapon and combat agent designs. There were a lot of those, if designing weapons was their best skill, documenting their research was their second best. When I read the scientists' own papers, some passages seemed oddly familiar. I went back to compare with my parents' notes. It seemed that those scientists had come close to discovering a phenomenon that my parents had discovered, only my parents had used it to design the weapon that won the war."

Unchosen grumbled. "Fairy Dust."

Fire said: "Its actual designation is MA-021-X, my parents' notes on the underlying phenomenon were quite extensive but some of it sounded rather crazy. I decided to give the scientists a carefully redacted copy of the notes, they were able to fill in the gaps in their own knowledge and designed a working interface using the phenomenon."

Jack asked: "That's all well and good but how does this software actually work? What's the phenomenon?"

Shadow replied, smiling: "Magic."

This alleged answer left Jack with yet more questions.

Fire said: "What my parents discovered was actually quite explicable through the laws of physics, it's just that the laws needed to explain it haven't been discovered by anyone other than our parents, sadly they didn't write down any proof of them, only their effects."

Jack asked: "So you're telling me they used magic to win the war? I saw the name of their combat agent when I did some… research but I never found out what it did."

Unchosen said: "That's because it doesn't do one thing. They just dropped warheads filled with the stuff onto enemy territory. At first it doesn't do anything but after repeated bombardments people in the area start dying. Some die of heart failure, others die of internal hemorrhage, others die from suddenly brittle bones. That's the early stages. Once the land becomes saturated with Fairy Dust the really weird things start happening, I mostly heard tales, the only time I saw it for myself was when I performed an autopsy on a dead soldier. He had hundreds of flowers growing everywhere inside of him, don't ask me how the seeds got there."

That did sound like magic. Jack asked: "So, how does this Fairy Dust do this?"

This time Shadow was the one to explain. "Up until recently we didn't understand it either but we had a… in order to not open up another warehouse of cans of worms, let's call it accidental expansion of horizons and leave it at that. In short, we found out how it worked. So, in parallel to our world there is a plane where additional laws of physics are in play, the energy contained within is generally directionless. If this energy comes into contact with a mind it can be guided."

The robed woman said: "That sounds like the magic we have here, that other plane sounds like how you described Void magic to me."

Fire said: "Because it is Void magic. Fairy Dust temporarily weakens the barrier between our world and that other plane, allowing the Void magic to seep out, it is then given direction by the first mind it comes in contact with. Sadly the amount of magic released is too small to be controlled consciously so it follows whatever the subconscious is concerned with at the moment. The magic then goes on to alter reality in that area, which frequently causes chaotic, and usually lethal results. Once an area is exposed to more Fairy Dust, more magic is released and more complex things are allowed to happen, like those flowers."

Jack asked: "Okay, now that that's cleared up, why are the people logging into the server not living flowerbeds?"

Fire said: "The software works differently, or at least it does now, in the beginning it was quite similar, only that the phenomenon wasn't caused by a combat agent but by a computer. What it does now is create a punctual tear in the veil that separates us from the other plane, allowing a direct connection to the brain without any magic spilling through. From there on the scientists were able to build up any functionality they wanted. The reason the magic obeys their code is because that's what they wanted it to do when they first established their connection."

Jack said: "That's actually surprisingly logical."

Jack's arms and legs were slowly going numb from being constricted by the living shadow, he sure hoped that this conversation would be done with soon. It had helped immensely with the questions he had after the events in Rockhaven but now a new feeling crept up: The oldest fear known to mankind, the fear of the unknown.

Jack's internal pleas seemed to go unanswered for now, Fire began speaking again: "The reason I originally contacted the scientists was to help Shadow, which I succeeded in. I only recently found out what exactly Shadow's condition had been."

Shadow said: "Before they deployed MA-021-X, Fairy Dust, our parents had earlier versions of their combat agent. The difference was that while MA-021-X quickly decayed and just as quickly weakened the veil, an earlier version called MA-014-X was different. That version didn't decay as quickly, in turn the weakening was also slower. Our parents were exposed to MA-014-X without their knowledge, it turns out that not only had the long-term effects killed them, they had also affected both Fire and me. We can't be sure but Fire's theory is that from birth on, my mind was sort of half-stuck in the other plane. I don't have many coherent memories of anything except my interactions with Fire from that time so I can only assume that everything but him must have looked frightening to me, he must have been the exception because he was affected too. So far, we haven't found out what the effects on him were but they don't seem to be detrimental."

Fire said: "Through the Ascension Project I was able to fully transfer Shadow's mind over to the other plane. In hindsight it should have been obvious that the result wouldn't be exactly human anymore. However, I know that it made her situation much better, which is enough for me."

Jack finally decided to ask: "Are you done? I don't think my limbs will tolerate this for much longer."

Shadow said: "Almost. There is just one last thing I would like to show you. You see, we didn't know about the whole separate magic plane thing until recently, we only knew about its effects. I would like to show you what opened our eyes to the bigger picture."

Jack didn't like those words. He didn't like those words one bit. They were too ominous for his taste and yet he was scared to find out their meaning. As he saw Shadow slowly walking towards him it dawned on him that he wouldn't have a choice in the matter.

Shadow extended her right hand and firmly gripped Jack's left hand. Then it happened… or at least that's when Jack expected something to happen. He turned his head towards Shadow to ask what exactly was going on. When his head started moving was when it actually happened. He was suddenly in a black void, maybe black wasn't the right term for it, black implied that there at least was something there to perceive at all, there was only nothingness around him.

He felt how Shadow leaned towards him, which at least was a sensation he recognized. She was uncomfortably close to his ear when she whispered: "Don't let go of my hand, you don't want to be stuck here."

He asked: "Where exactly is 'here'?"

Shadow said: "Outside of the world. I'm impressed by how quickly you recovered. Then again, I've never taken anyone out here before, at least nobody that I wanted to take back again."

Slowly but surely Jack's perception adapted to whatever it was he was seeing. Shapes like bubbles began appearing in his field of view, their colors almost blinding against the nothingness around them. A light headache began to plague Jack. The shapes gradually got sharper, more defined, the headache grew alongside. One of them looked like the forest he had just been in, in fact he could see the others looking at him through the bubble. The other bubbles had different scenes in them, one showed a cliff, in another he saw what looked to be a stained glass window. He again tried moving his head, the world was nothing again. As he waited again, different bubbles began forming, each containing a different scene.

"What are those bubbles?" Jack asked, half-tempted to turn towards Shadow but decided against it since every change of perspective greatly increased the pain in his skull.

Shadow said: "Bubbles? Oh, right. Feeding higher-dimensional information to a brain designed for three dimensions causes issues. The bubbles you see are worlds, or rather glimpses of worlds."

"Worlds?" Jack at least tried to be confused but his brain was too busy processing the otherworldly sensations.

"We are not alone. We may be alone in our universe but there are plenty of others out there that are definitely populated." Shadow paused. "It was quite a shock for Fire too, though he had more immediate concerns when he found out. You may panic now."

Jack indeed panicked but managed to do so while holding still. This was all a couple of magnitudes of sizes too big for him. The panic subsided as quickly as it had come, it was replaced by contemplation. How much of this should he tell Q, or Alice? How much of it would they believe? Could he even continue doing this? It wasn't too late to quit, right? All he had to do was convince Q to release control of the server, then he could just go back to his ordinary life that didn't have magic or other worlds. Well, it technically did but they wouldn't concern him. Could he even go back now that he knew? If he could he'd have to be very quiet about it if he didn't want to end up in a mental institution.

Jack's flow of thoughts was interrupted by a pull on his arm, Shadow was moving him somewhere. Before he had the chance to close his eyes the movement was over. His headache had intensified beyond what he thought possible. Directly in front of him was a bubble that seemed very familiar, it showed his respawn bed in the hacker's processing building in the slave mine.

Shadow said: "I think it's best if you don't come back."

After those words he again felt movement, he was thrown towards the bubble with the bed, he also noticed that Shadow had let go of his hand. He looked behind him as he soared towards the ever-growing bubble. Behind him was Shadow, waving to him before disappearing from his view.

The next thing Jack felt was an impact, it was quite a soft impact, which was nice. Jack lifted his head, he was not wherever he had been before, which he very much liked. He was lying face down in his respawn bed, aside from the pounding headache he was fine.

From his right he heard a voice, or rather a volley of profanity, according to the vocabulary it had to be Alice.

Jack sat up and saw Alice lie in the bed next to his. She asked: "She killed you too, didn't she?"

At first Jack didn't answer, after some consideration he decided to lie to Alice: "Yes, yes she did."