Jacob sighed. “So… what do we do now, man?”

Kyle looked up to see who Jacob was talking to.

And met Jacob’s gaze.

“Why the —- are you asking me!?” Kyle shouted, standing and storming over to him. “What good am I? My ideas? What’s it gotten us, huh? The bloomery’s gone. The apothecary’s gone. We’ve got nothing. Nothing! I don’t know why you think I’m in charge here. That it’s my responsibility to somehow fix everything. That it’s my responsibility to take care of everyone!

“This world is a wreck,” Kyle ranted. “It’s full of death, pain, and murder. And I’ve been lying to you to this whole time. Making you believe we had another option. Well tough. No amount of naive optimism can change that.”

Kyle scowled at Jacob, who stood and backed away, frightened. Lip curled, Kyle turned and looked at Aubrey, and saw her dark expression.

“What?” Kyle demanded. “You should know. You nearly got wiped. A jacker decided she wanted your stone, so she was ready to kill every last of of you. I stopped it. But then the jackers realized I was being an idiot. Now they’re gone, probably off slaughtering innocents for their useless silver or whatever.”

“So what do we do now?” Kyle asked, turning to Dvorak. “Fine. I’ll tell you. It’s every man for himself. Get out of here. Find dungeons, kill guys, and get loot. Obviously it’s better than anything we can make. If you can’t do that, just build a lean-to in the middle of nowhere and pray nobody finds you. It’s over. Crystopia’s just a corpse now. A shattered remnant of a stupid dream.”

He looked towards Avina, who had a look of shock and… concern? He turned away, suppressing his annoyance. What? Did she think pity would help him? He sat down on a sooty chunk of scorched wood in what used to be the library.

“Just leave. I don’t have anything for you. Following a deluded idealist just got you killed. So why bother?”

There was silence. But nobody left. Kyle sat there, sulking and hating them all.

“I follow you,” said Dvorak suddenly, “Because you care about me.”

Kyle had never heard Dvorak’s voice sound like that before. It was a normal volume, without a trace of showmanship. It sounded almost natural. Kyle looked up and saw Dvorak’s face, sober and serious.

“You gave me a job,” Jacob said from the side. “I didn’t fit in. I had nothing to offer. You kept me from giving up.” Jacob paused, then added, “I don’t want to go back to being out of place. I need this city.”

“You don’t understand,” said Aubrey. Kyle turned to see her pointing towards Jacob with her eyes. “The people look up to you. In a way they didn’t look up to me. I represented survival for them. A way to stay hidden. Safe. But you? You represent stability. Security. Hope. Why do you think I’ve let you take leadership over my group?”

“What leadership?” Kyle asked. “I never asked for this. People just do what I say. And if I don’t say it, nobody seems to do it. I’m not trying to be the leader here. It just sort of happened.”

“That’s crap,” Mason said. “You’ve been leading ever since you intercepted Lumen and told him what the ‘meta’ was. Don’t pretend you haven’t been.”

“You said it yourself in the mines,” Aubrey said. “‘I’m kind of leading this whole thing.’ Your quote.”

“Kind of,” Kyle said. “Dvorak’s the mayor, right?”

“I’m just a figurehead,” Dvorak said in that same eerie, subdued voice.

Kyle shook his head. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter who leads this. The game’s designed to pit us against each other. Cooperating is pointless.”

“Do you really believe that?” Jacob asked. “The game’s got community respawn points, man. Practice arenas. Hospitals even. I don’t buy it. This game isn’t meant to be done alone.”

Aubrey nodded. “Do you actually think this is a solo game?” she said darkly. “Or are you just afraid to step up?”

Kyle had no answer to that. They sat in silence a while longer. Kyle hung his head, pointedly avoiding eye contact.

“Why me, though?” Kyle said. “What makes you think I’m the right person?”

“You saved my life,” Avina said. Kyle looked up, and saw her face, a tenuous mix of fear and hope.

“You fought the angel with us,” Dvorak said quietly. “You didn’t need to do that. You just did.”

“I’m still not the guy for this,” Kyle said.

“Three silver says you’re wrong,” Mason said.

Kyle didn’t respond. He was lost in thought.

Then Kyle heard brisk, heavy footsteps from behind him. He turned just in time to see Mason grab his collar.

“Look, Kyle,” he said. “You’re done wallowing around in depression. We don’t have the benefit of self-pity here. You need to do something.” Kyle blinked, surprised by Mason’s sudden forcefulness. “You’ve gotten all our hopes up. You were a great leader. For a while. Then you started suddenly trying to throw it all aside. Pretend like you never meant it. I kept waiting for you to step up, and you never did.

“Now you’ve got two options,” Mason continued. “Man up and get back in the game, or get the hell out of our city. If it’s really every man for himself, you’re gonna be the first to walk. Think fast.”

Mason let go and backed up, arms folded, and Kyle slumped back on the ash covered rock, and shut his eyes.

He couldn’t lead these people. He just couldn’t.

Not in the way they wanted. They wanted somebody to give them stability. Safety. Somebody to protect them from people like that asshole with the fire rod. Well, Kyle couldn’t do that.

Was it even possible?

Then again, did it even matter? Or was hoping for that stability enough for them?

He opened his eyes, and looked at the faces of the group. He thought of the others, who weren’t there. Skyfire the architect. Braden. Raphael. They needed something.

Hope.

Maybe stability and safety were impossible dreams. Maybe not. But if people gave up on that dream, it would be all too easy to fall into despair. Hopelessness.

These people needed some way to fight against the world they were trapped in. They needed something to keep them from hiding like animals and living in fear for over a year. They needed something to help them keep living their lives as best they could.

They needed hope.

Kyle could do that much, at least.

Kyle sighed. Wiping his brow, he heaved himself off the rock and stood from the ashes of the building.

“Okay. Fine. Let’s do this. Jacob? You can deconstruct your own buildings to reclaim some of the resources, right? See if you can do anything with these ruins. They didn’t despawn entirely, so the designers must intend them to be used for something. Aubrey? Take whoever’s best with archery and start hunting. Get the rest of your people to start farming. We need wheat in the ground, like, yesterday. Avina and Dvorak, I need you to go to the south. I’ll give you directions. There’s a guy in a cabin in the woods that seems he’s doing pretty well for himself. See if you can get him to come join us; we need a good hunter.”

“Why us?” asked Avina.

“We need to approach him diplomatically. And I can think of literally nobody less threatening than you and a bunny. But you’ve got buff spells and Dvorak’s a murder bunny, so you’ll actually be fine. And Mason?” Mason smiled smugly. “You and I need to start figuring out what’s in those dungeons. We’ve not been to any ‘adventure sites’ except for Aubrey’s mine. We need to get all the sites within a few hours travel identified, mapped, and checked for crystals.”

Dvorak jumped and cheered “This is it, folks! Crystopia is back in action. Ooh! Ooh! Or is it New Crystopia now?”

Aubrey groaned. “I’ll have you know, I wasn’t here for the discussion when this city was first named. And I have definite opinions on the matter.” Jacob laughed, and the gloom over the group started to lift.

Suddenly, a large notification appeared in front of Kyle, just a few feet in front of him:

Based on your outstanding involvement and leadership, you have been awarded the title of “King”. Thank you for all you have done to make the community of Infigeas a better place! Please see your help menu and “Social” menu for information and options regarding your new role. Congratulations, Kyle!

In disbelief, Kyle pressed an X in the corner of the notification to close it. He saw the others looking in front of themselves, eyes wide.

“I’m… I’m part of a kingdom now?” Avina asked.

“What the hell does this even mean?” Aubrey asked, closing her notification and tapping through other menus.

“It means,” Kyle said, with narrowed eyes, “That somebody’s watching us. No way that a computer would think to give me this rank right now, right after an appropriately emotional and climactic speech. A computer would have given me this rank long ago, when I was actually acting like a leader. Somebody is watching and has a flair for the dramatic.” Kyle balled his hands into fists. “Well I’m going to ruin it.”

Kyle looked up to the sky. “—- you, you assholes at virtuaverse!” he shouted, ”A title’s not going to change how we feel about this game! You kidnapped us and made our lives hell! We don’t want to be here!”

Kyle walked over to Dvorak. He didn’t know where the cameras were, but “near Dvorak” was a good guess. He stood next to Dvorak, pointed in a random direction and said “And you, viewers at home. Why the hell are you still watching innocents get tortured! Call Virtuaverse. Call your congressmen. Start a class-action suit. Stop watching and boycott this stream. Boycott all the streams from Virtuaverse. All their games, too. We can’t let them get away with this. Please,” Kyle noticed his voice was cracking. Figures he couldn’t do this without getting emotional. “Please help us.”

He sighed, and walked back to the crystal. “That’s it, I think. Mason, help Jacob instead. We won’t be leaving to go scouting for a while. I need to… I need to read. I guess I’m King now. I wonder what that’s unlocked… in my help menus. Okay, break,” Kyle said, clapping his hands.

People wandered off, leaving Kyle alone in the blue light of the crystal.

Winded, Kyle sat down and started to read.

He supposed he needed to figure out what being a king meant.