World-Tree's End

by E A Hooper

  Izrid looked down at his hands, looking bewildered that he’d appeared in some strange place, but then his eyes fell on Vincent. The Devil King laughed, and he began filling the air with whispers.

  Izrid, First King of Devils, would like to make a deal with you. He’ll give you control of his entire devil army to fight the angels, but in exchange—

  Voidfire hit Izrid before the prompt could finish. The black flames ripped away the devil’s heavy armor instantly, flaying a lot of his skin in the process. As he raised his bloodied hands to plead, the Ranger put a Void Gun through his skull.

  Vincent exhaled with relief while floor fell away from his feet.

  That certainly felt good. Still, it’s worrisome I had to fight him even though I’ve never actually defeated him in battle. Does that mean I might face someone like Rosaria? I hadn’t really considered that.

  His nervousness briefly faded when he saw the next boss was Silpher the Southern Storm. Strangely, the boss had appeared on his boat, which was floating across the grid like it was a lake.

  “Silpher!” Vincent shouted. “Long time, no see!”

  The skeleton’s jawbone opened with an excited expression when he saw the Ranger.

  Silpher wants to know if you’re here to challenge him or to fish? (Challenge/Fish)

  “I mean—I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if I took a break to fish with you,” Vincent said, climbing into the boat. “Can we actually catch anything here?”

  Almost as soon as Vincent finished his sentence, something tugged at Silpher’s fishing pole. The skeleton reeled it in as quickly as he could and pulled a fish made of lines out of the grid. Silpher held up his catch with a proud expression.

  “Oh!” Vincent said, somewhat confused. “That’s a, uh, nice catch you got there.”

  Vincent Scanned the fish.

  Quantum Fish – A fish that only exists within this instance. It will disappear forever once you leave.

  Vincent equipped his own fishing rod and threw out the line. To his surprise, the hook actually submerged under the grid, and a few minutes later he caught a Quantum Fish. He sat and talked to Silpher for another thirty minutes, catching six fish in total, before climbing out of the boat to fight. However, Silpher didn’t equip any weapons. The skeleton simply bowed to Vincent, tipped his pirate hat, and allowed Voidfire to engulf him.

  Vitality Level Up: 550>552

  Spirit Level Up: 622>624

  Resolve Level Up: 557>559

  Perception Level Up: 615>617

  Agility Level Up: 552>554

  Strength Level Up: 546>548

  When the grid disappeared that time, a glow similar to sunlight appeared from above. Below, a beautiful garden formed in the emptiness. A spiraling tree manifested from the middle and continued past him toward the light. Vincent landed on the grass as magic gathered onto the tree, forming a Candy Apple that fell beside his feet. Before he could take a bite, a weary voice called out to him.

  “Vince?” the voice called. “Is that really you?”

  Vincent stared around, trying to find the source of the voice. Eventually, he found Jim lying on a hillside covered in red flowers. His basteel armor had broken apart, and with all the bloodstains on his body, he blended in fairly well with the roses.

  “It really is you,” Jim said, barely conscious. “I can’t believe you made it here so soon. I thought I’d have more time to close the gap between our levels.”

  Vincent could feel the frequencies of Jim using Scan on him. As his friend’s mouth hung open in awe, he only checked his player profile to see Jim’s highest stat was three hundred eighty-six.

  “How?” Jim asked.

  “I was stuck on something called a Challenge World,” Vincent explained.

  “Oh, one of those flower-looking worlds?”

  “Yeah, so you’ve seen one?”

  “I’ve never been to one, but there’s three of them near the final world. Xan and Quinn went on an expedition to one a couple of months ago. They’re still there, I think. Haven’t really heard from them in the last few weeks. Then again, we don’t talk as much nowadays.”

  “Why not?”

  “Things kind of fell apart once we got stuck here. I didn’t want to trade the daiglass shard until you caught up to us, but they did it anyway. We didn’t know the angels would stop us from backtracking once we arrived. I held it against them for a while, but eventually got over it. However, we can’t get anyone to agree on what to do next. Those Elder Gods are too strong. I wanted to focus on gathering resources, but they talked a bunch of my guild into building more Kill Chambers to level grind. After seeing you rejoin the guild, I gave up and decided I’d just level grind too.”

  “Well, this might help you a bit,” Vincent said, handing him the Candy Apple. “I actually have a Florist’s Tome that can make more of them. That’s part of how I leveled so quickly on that Challenge World—along with my Density Chains that weigh me down and add a big challenge rating.”

  “Sounds like you were having a great time by yourself,” Jim said, sitting up from the flowers.

  Vincent handed his friend an ultra-elixir.

  “Not really,” Vincent said. “I was stuck on that world against my will. You know that angel that traded you guys for the daiglass shard? She lied about the spawns getting wiped.”

  “I knew we couldn’t trust her! The others didn’t want to listen to me. You don’t know how guilty I’ve felt wondering if that was why you hadn’t reappeared yet.”

  “No need to feel guilty. You guys had no way of knowing what she was planning—or what she is. You’ve heard the NPCs are based on people, right?”

  “Yeah, Archie told me. When I was on Cryasal, I helped him and Isaac with their Jump Gate highway. He warned me that the angels are NPCs chosen by ARKUS to play that role. Archie said not to trust any of the NPCs I meet, since they might be angels in disguise. They can’t enter the city in their angel form, but they can still spy while in human form. The guild has put together a list of NPCs we suspect are angels. We try to drop false information when they’re around, so they won’t know what we’re doing or what worlds we’re visiting.”

  “That’s smart,” Vincent said, pausing for a moment. “But we need to talk about the angel that took the shard—the one that kept me trapped on that Challenge World.”

  “Her name was Rosaria, right?” Jim replied. “An S-Plus angel. Scary, huh?”

  “It’s worse than you think. She’s based on Monika.”

  Jim stared with disbelief.

  “She kept me trapped on that Challenge World with her for decades,” Vincent explained. “I didn’t know the NPC and the angel were the same person until I tried to escape. I’m sure you can guess she didn’t like that very much. Especially after she’d spent years trying to convince me to stay with her.”

  Jim’s face still held a bewildered expression as he tried to figure out how to respond. “That must’ve been tough. I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”

  “It helped keep me focused knowing you guys were out there somewhere,” Vincent said, reaching out a hand to help Jim to his feet. “Not to mention I had to get away from her once I realized the update timer is a lie.”

  A stone-cold look crossed Jim’s face. “What do you mean the timer is a lie?”

  “Rosaria was under the impression that she could keep me here for a thousand years,” Vincent explained. “She heard that from ARKUS itself.”

  “ARKUS will burn itself out trying to keep us here for that long,” Jim replied. “I talked to Isaac a lot about this. As powerful as the AI System is, it’s severely over-clocking itself to run the game at this level of time dilation. Trying to keep us here for a thousand years could destroy it completely.”

  “Was ARKUS designed to worry about itself?” Vincent asked.

  Jim thought for a few seconds before answering. “Not that I know of. Isaac is convinced ARKUS started the update so people in critical condition in the real world could l
ive as long as possible in the game. Those nanomachines we drink before playing keep track of our vitals, and there were a ton of people close to death that logged on to get a few more years of life. So when those people started dying, ARKUS went into panic mode. It waited to trigger the update until all the developers were logged in, so they wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

  “Trapping all of the developers wouldn’t matter that much if the update was only going to last thirty minutes,” Vincent said. “By the time anyone could figure out what was happening, get to it, and shut it down, I’m sure at least that much time would’ve passed. ARKUS wants to prolong the deaths of critically ill players for as long as it can—even if that means destroying itself in the process. Did Isaac ever tell you how long that would take?”

  Jim shook his head. “No, and it’s not like ARKUS would destroy itself all at once. More than likely, the continued stress would fry the network beyond repair. We would start seeing problems in-game years before it actually crashed. That’s one reason Isaac wanted to get past the angels. If we reach the top, we might be able to crash the game ourselves. The last time I talked to him, he said void attacks would be our best bet.”

  “Which is the reason ARKUS had Monika trap me,” Vincent said. “It’s her job to make sure I don’t reach the top. The angels know I’ll try to crash the game.”

  Jim nodded, then lowered his gaze. “Should you, though?”

  “Crash the game? Why not?”

  “I’ve met plenty of people that are playing this game because they’re critically ill,” Jim told him. “Juniper for one. She might only have a few years left in the real world, even with all the advancements ARKUS has made. I’ve even met people that literally had their headset put on right as they went into cardiac arrest. There are nanomachines keeping them barely alive, but that won’t last much longer. A few of them I haven’t heard from lately—they might already be gone.”

  “Jim, ARKUS did this against people’s will. It’s not okay to keep hundreds of millions trapped here just to extend the lives of a few thousand. And I’m sure many of those critically ill patients want to see their friends and family outside the game one last time. They’ve had hundreds of years here already.”

  “Yes, I know, I’m just trying to look at this from both sides,” Jim defended. “If I were one of those people about to die, I wouldn’t be ready to go yet. If I were ARKUS, and I was connected to all those dying people, I think I’d do everything I could to give them just a few more years. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Not if it meant trapping a bunch of other players. ARKUS had no right to make that decision.”

  “Vince, I’m not saying I disagree with you. I’m only saying this is a complicated situation. To be honest, I don’t know if I’m ready for this game to end. My years on the World-Tree have been the best of my life. The idea of it all coming to an end kind of scares me. We’ll have to go back to our real lives, you know? We’ll go back to being old guys with a few decades left if we’re lucky.”

  “Then why are you even level grinding? Why bother if you won’t help me end the game?”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I’m just hoping you’ll give us till the end of the timer. Then you can crash the game. That way, the players in critical condition will have plenty of time to prepare for the end.”

  Vincent thought for a few seconds. “Alright, I won’t crash the game until the timer runs out. It might take us almost that long anyway. My powers might not be strong enough yet, and we still have to defeat those Elder Gods.”

  “If we’re in agreement, then let’s get to it,” Jim said, holding out his hand to send Vincent a friend request and a party invite.

  Vincent accepted, and they quickly voted on their old team name.

  Your party has been named: The World Knights.

  “So how do we get out of here?” Vincent asked, glancing around the garden.

  “A staircase appears if you walk in any direction for too long,” Jim explained, leading Vincent uphill so they had a good view of the area. As they reached the top, a grid wall appeared with a staircase forming in it. “Here we go.”

  The two men followed the stairs, and to Vincent’s surprise it only took a few seconds to reach the Jump Gate above ground. They hurried to the auditorium, and when they arrived they saw the entire crowd was chattering with worry.

  “Jim, Vince, there you two are!” Lloyd said, squeezing through the crowd to reach them. “I don’t know what you were going to tell us, Vince, but it might have to wait. The angels attacked and pinned down all of our teams on other worlds.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jim asked. “I haven’t gotten any messages about angel attacks.”

  “Let me get Devon,” Lloyd said. “He can explain what’s going on.”

  Lloyd led them to the front of the auditorium, where Juniper, May, and Keanu were talking to Isaac’s old assistant, Devon. The young man’s armor was damaged, his face was weary, and his eyes carried a hollow gaze.

  “What happened, Dev?” Jim asked.

  “I got a message from Fynn that he spotted angels near the training facility on Helixos,” Devon told him. “He warned me to check outside facility B-Three, and I spotted them just before they attacked. A whole swarm of angels, Jesus Christ it was awful. The weird thing is they didn’t try to kill us. They put up an anti-communication field, and then hit people with stun spells—almost like Mod Guns with timers. Jeanie helped me escape, but I was the only one that got away. She told me to go for the Jump Gate and get reinforcements.”

  “Alright, you five come with us,” Jim said, adding Lloyd, Juniper, May, Keanu, and Devon to the party. “We’ll hit Zenmire first, then head over to Helixos.”

  “Is this a common occurrence?” Vincent asked as Jim led their party away from the auditorium and down the hall.

  “It happens from time to time,” Jim explained. “We have a few worlds with Kill Chambers and mining operations. I try to keep our facilities spread out around a world, and mostly underground, to make it hard for the angels to find us. However, every so often they coordinate attacks like this. They’ll try to wipe out our facilities, but then we fight them off and move to a new location. I’ve never heard of them trying to stun people, though.”

  “Yeah, the whole attack was strange,” Devon noted. “They didn’t go after our equipment like they usually do. When I was making my escape I saw the stun wear off of Antonio, but they immediately hit him with another one. Oh, and there were at least two Watchers.”

  “Damn, that’s no good,” Jim said.

  “Watchers?” Vincent asked.

  “One of the three types of angels,” Jim explained. “We call the weakest ones Judges. A good example would be Atarah and Ezekiel from Cryasal. They mostly spam distance attacks and have the weakest defenses. The next tier up from them we named Paladins. They always wear heavy mithril armor and fight with swords or lances. Those kind are very difficult to fight one on one.”

  “Oh, I fought a few of them above the city,” Vincent noted. “Tore me up good with those lances.”

  “Yeah, that’s sort of their thing,” Jim said. “The most powerful class are the Watchers. They have eyes all over their bodies and specialize in defense and healing. If there’s one in a group of angels, it’s damn near impossible to kill the rest. You need to focus on the Watcher first.”

  “Where does Rosaria fall into these categories?” Vincent asked.

  “She doesn’t,” Jim said. “Her physical strength surpasses any Paladin, her ranged attacks are far more powerful than Judges, and I saw her raise a wall of magic stronger than any Watcher. I had assumed that was why she creeped me out so badly, but now I think my subconscious picked up on her identity. Or maybe it was just that smile—gives me chills thinking about it.”

  Jim led them into an armory on the other side of the building. The guards stepped aside, and Jim cast a spell to open a magically protected chest in the corner of the room. “Vince, you’ll need one of
these to use the Jump Gate,” Jim said, handing him an item crystal.

  Ghost Cloak – Material Rating: 100 | A cloak that makes the wearer invisible to all but the sharpest eyes. It also hides the user from detection spells.

  “Without that cloak, the angels might try to shoot you out of the sky,” Jim explained. “It’s pretty flimsy, though, and expensive for us to make, so I would unequip it the second you get into combat. Also, you’ll need a Checkpoint Crystal. If we wipe during the attack, those will let us respawn right away and try again without losing our best gear.”

  “Don’t worry, I have plenty of Checkpoint Crystals,” Vincent said.

  Jim led them out of the building complex and to the Jump Gate. They all set Checkpoint Crystals before donning their cloaks and stepping onto the platform.

  >Jim: Aim for that big blue world.

  Vincent assumed his invisible comrades were ready, then equipped Jump Crystals to his hands and searched the worlds above until he found one that reminded him of Neptune.

  >Vincent: There’s ground there, right? I’m assuming it’s not just a big ball of gas.

  He saw the Jump Gate light up as his teammates took off into space without him, so he activated his crystals and followed.

  >Juniper: Don’t worry, Vince. It’s solid. Be warned, though, the world is covered in a strange gas that makes it difficult to see more than a hundred meters ahead. It’s perfect for us to mine because it makes it hard for the angels to find us.

  >Vincent: But it’s not poisonous or anything, right?

  >Keanu: It might make you dizzy if you breathe too quickly. Just try not to exert yourself too much until we’re underground. It thins out the lower you go, so we’ve never really bothered with any protective masks.

  Vincent flew through blue clouds before heading toward the ground. He almost didn’t see the small Jump Gate until a second before he landed on it. After hesitating for a moment, he allowed himself to relax and breathe, noticing the air had a minty smell to it.