I found myself standing near the spawn crystal. I was still feeling hollow from the terrible day I’d had. I was also still feeling somewhat jittery, but considering that was from a game effect, it wasn’t surprising. I had expected it to be difficult to fall asleep, but it turned out that logging into the game knocked me right out. Curing insomnia was apparently another fringe benefit to this whole ordeal.

Lacking any sort of tap into my senses, I was also no longer recording my gameplay. John had floated the idea of loaning me some sort of external sense recording bed that was normally used for some medical purpose, but that had fallen through when I refused any arrangement where I would be liable for damage to the hardware. What had happened to that display was still fresh in all of our minds.

I had promised John that I would stay with Joe so I would be covered by his recordings. Apparently this was for some legal thing, so I agreed. I would need to do some research into what exactly the issue was there, so I didn’t run afoul of it without knowing.

As if summoned by my thoughts about him, Joe appeared in a flash of portal magic. I wondered momentarily about why they went with that, in particular, for the effect.

“Joe, can you see the effects when people log in, or is it a… mystic thing?” I asked. Correct terminology was important, but I was still a little weirded out by it.

“People just pop in or out. Must be a mystic thing.”

“Well that seems strange that they’d lock so much behind an apparently unpopular character choice. Maybe humans just deviate from the designers’ expectations. Can you imagine if no one picked that option? We’d be totally screwed.” I mused.

“Kinda reminds me of an old tabletop game. Had a whole magical world overlayed on the normal world that stuff could happen in but only certain magical characters could see, and then a whole technomagical world in the same sort of a position which only a different type of magical character could see, and then there was an AR layer too! It was wild.”

“Sounds like it,” I said, “Do they have a modern edition?”

Joe laughed, “No way, man. Probably on the subversive list. It had evil megacorps as the bad guys.”

“Ah,” I said, letting the topic drop.

I felt that vague game signal informing me that Lindsey would be logging on.

“Ah, good. Lindsey is coming.”

Joe tilted his huge reptilian head to the side.

“Wait. How do you know that?” He asked, just in time for Lindsey to appear in a shower of luminous particles that apparently only I could see. “Is this a mystic thing?”

“I don’t think so, more of a ‘friends list’ type of thing.”

“I don’t have a friends list,” Joe said.

“I would like to continue adventuring with you, Joe.” I said. Joe’s head jerked in surprise. He blinked a few times.

“Well, I guess I have one now. You’re listed as ‘Will, Senior Forensic Tester’. Interesting.”

“What? How did it figure that out?” I complained.

Lindsey, who had been to this point content to watch us fret over minutia, spoke up, “Will, that was how you introduced yourself to me.”

I paused to reflect, and yes, that was exactly how I had declared myself, thinking at first that she was one of my coworkers. Could I change it?

“I am the King of England!” I declared. “Any change?”

Joe shook his head.

“I am the Lord of the Undead! I am Alexander. I’m John. I’m the Logophage. I’m the Silver Dragon? Anything?”

“Nope,” Joe said, “why not try something simpler?”

“I am William Bekker,” I said, a bit displeased that I couldn’t name or title my avatar as I saw fit. You would normally have to earn titles, but considering it had already let me title myself once... well, hopefully it didn’t just go with whatever you said first with no way to change it.

“That one took. Shows up as ‘William Bekker, Senior Forensic Tester‘ now.”

“Damn it, I was trying to get rid of the dumb professional title,” I complained.

“Maybe something related to you, instead of random nonsense?” Lindsey offered.

The game did seem to pick up on intent, like with adding people to the friends list in the first place. Maybe it could tell that I was just throwing out nonsense. I pondered what a good way to describe myself might be, particularly in the context of the game. ‘William Bekker, Haver of an Inventory’ would just be sad, and I didn’t dare say it out loud for fear that the damn thing would accept it. Maybe something related to the void? Arbiter of the Void? Maybe too edgy.

[Conservator of the Executive Office] suggested my pigeon.

I had saved his office by putting it in its own little bubble. It was a good start, but I wanted something more general and hopefully less ridiculous, just in case I couldn’t change it again. Maybe eventually I could make more little bubbles of space, and populate them with other helpful monsters? My own little hidden counsel. Or just little scenes in their own little worlds. Yeah, that would work.

“I am the Conservator of Hidden Worlds,” I declared.

“Hah,” Joe barked out a rasping reptilian laugh, “That worked!”

Lindsey had a sceptical look on her face. I was learning to recognize that one.

“Part of our job is to figure this stuff out, even the fiddly little things,” I said with an apologetic smile, “besides, it’s important to have a good name.”

“Well,” she said, “now that you have one shall we continue? Were you able to keep the key we need for that obstruction on the tenth floor?”

“I’ve got it,” I confirmed, “some of the others are planning to try for the orb in their own towers tonight, and who knows how the Chinese are doing, but unless I’ve missed my guess, we should be the first to actually see the lower floors!”

As we were descending the stairs, I had a thought.

“It’s strange that the other testers, especially those in a tower with fewer DA personnel, haven’t run into more of our international counterparts,” I said.

“It is the timezone, most likely,” Lindsey answered, “my peers who are participating coordinate their sleep times. I expect that the Chinese participants are state employees, so they likely have mandated sleep times.”

I looked at her, but before I could voice my question, she spoke again.

“I chose this time intentionally. I am something of a… black sheep, you would call it. In the best case, I would find good company, as I have. In the worst case, at least I would get to deal with new and interesting belligerents, rather than the ones I know already.”

We lapsed into comfortable silence while we completed our descent. When we reached the barrier, I summoned the orb. No orb appeared, and I was hit by a wave of weariness. It felt like stumbling while running up a flight of stairs, already tired from running up a dozen flights beforehand. I reflexively took a deep breath, and it actually seemed to help a little bit. I tried again, and my control slipped totally, allowing a flash of pure solar fire to escape from my main inventory. I could see my companions flinch away, and I was left trying to blink the spot out of my vision.

“I, uh, may have had my power damaged in the fight with that boss, after we were all killed. Then I figured out how to actually use that light bottle you gave me, Joe, and it may have filled up all but a little protected bubble in my inventory. I’m having some performance issues, but I don’t know what exactly the issue is,” I explained.

“Well, on the one hand that is kind of awesome,” Joe said, “you have, what, a whole magic sun in your inventory now?”

I nodded.

“On the other,” he continued, “I’m pretty much blind now. I think I saw you nod just now, but most of my vision is just a black splotch. We may have to wait on the resting system to heal us up or I’m probably going to fall down these stairs.”

“I have the same problem,” said a rapidly blinking Lindsey, “you should be careful with that power.”

“Sure, sorry about that, we should sit down and wait for the healing to kick in. I’ll see if I can sort out my problem while we wait. We can see if the barrier recognizes the orb from my inventory, but either way I should definitely see if I can fix this while you guys heal up.”

“Hey, why aren’t you blind? You must have been staring right at it,” Joe pointed out, as we settled down on the landing in front of the barrier.

“Immune to my own power?” I threw out. The spots were, in fact, already gone from my vision. It was all I could think of, but maybe it wasn’t too surprising. Even though it wasn’t my actual power, I could literally feel the stellar radiance flowing through me like some kind of terrible super-coffee. “Have you burned yourself with your power at all?”

“Nope. I didn’t even think of that, though friendly fire is definitely in effect,” Joe said.

Joe and Lindsey settled in to wait for their eyes to be unburnt. They seemed to be discussing something about his family’s farm, or maybe hers. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on sorting myself out.

I thought back on yesterday, and concluded that I had made too many changes at once. It would be very difficult to pinpoint what, exactly, had caused my current difficulties. I had spiritually fought off the entropy spirit and seemingly been wounded in the exchange, I had created a fortified bubble, potentially at the expense of other parts of my inventory, and finally I had unleashed an entire sun into the probably weakened main inventory. Any one of those things could be the culprit, or worse, some combination of them.

If I could still remove my key, I might have had the option to reroll my avatar. Other testers would be checking that out tonight to see how it all worked, now that we knew it was an option. But I couldn’t. Now that I knew I was stuck with whatever choices I made here, and worse, that the effects would echo into my real life, I had to be more deliberate with my actions. My normal testing strategy of ‘throw everything at the wall and see what does something cool, then go back and check the recordings to guess why it happened’ would be foolish when I can’t just reset the consequences.

Digital Arts really should have given this task to proper scientists, not a bunch of low level workers and a few middle class experts that have vaguely suitable skills. Actually, that was probably the plan for at least a few of the next wave of keys. We were probably just the fodder, and whatever good data we managed to gather was probably secondary to simply confirming that this whole thing wasn’t a needlessly elaborate alien trap. Even Lindsey was a self-described black sheep. If this had all been a trap and something terrible had happened to her, it would be a tragedy, but probably a convenient one, depending on how much of a black sheep she actually was. Damn, that described my situation too. If I had vanished into the maw of a giant alien vortex, then DA probably gained more than they lost.

I sighed deeply, the rush of simulated oxygen momentarily reducing the weakness pressing down on me. A lot of this I could have probably seen ahead of time, if I had thought about it the right way. It was just that I didn’t really know how to spot plots or maneuver into or out of these kinds of situations. I was just a game tester. My greatest and most ambitious feats in life, up until I had thrown caution to the wind and demanded my Dreamshards key, were getting cross-trained in game development and then again in game design.

[You will learn] my pigeon encouraged me.

I smiled. I am learning. Despite my troubles, and how bad things could have gone, things were going fine. I opened my eyes and looked at my companions. Joe was a giant dinosaur, and I had met and might genuinely become friends with an aristocrat.

[And once your power and wisdom are unassailable, we will topple the towers of these schemers in the shadows who dare plot against us!]

It certainly sounded nice.

[We will flood their halls with worker pigeons and other suitable minions you find me!]

Alright, we don’t even know if there is actually anyone plotting against me. This is all hypothetical.

[And we will decorate my office with the spoils from their sacked hypothetical sanctums!]

Well, apparently my minion was also under the effects of solar powered ADHD. This whole thing really got away from me. First things first - test if the orb works before I try to fix my power.

I stepped forward, extending my hand toward the black bars. Even my ability to sense magical stuff… my mystic senses were dulled. I could detect the magical component of the barrier, but I was having trouble focusing on the details. When my hand made contact with the magical layer, it extended a connection towards me. The connection reached into my inventory, and was promptly obliterated by the stellar inferno. It seemed to be reaching for the orb, so it seemed like this might work, if I could just adjust the position of the pocket I had made relative to my main inventory. I tried to reposition it, and again was met with waves of exhaustion. I was, however, making some progress. I could feel the relative positions shifting, ever so slightly.

I set myself to this new task, trying to push the bubble that was my pigeon’s office in front of the rest of my inventory, so the connection would reach there first, rather than being burnt away before it could reach. The main problem was that these things were not operating in three dimensions. I was trying to rearrange two different three dimensional spaces, one of which might have been infinite, relative to one another in what was apparently some sort of fourth or higher dimensional space. Or space and dimensions weren’t actually what was going on here. I wasn’t sure which was more worrying.

It took a distressing amount of time and struggle, but I did eventually manage to push the space containing the orb out in front of the rest of my inventory. Mostly by chance, really. Whether higher dimensions or some sort of magical analog, the human mind was apparently ill-suited to this sort of thing.

When the barrier finally was able to make a connection to the orb, it disappeared in an expanding cloud of magical energy. Essence. The misty explosions washed over and out of the little bubble, over my inventory as a whole, and out into my body. The hollow feeling vanished instantly. It was as if a veil over my eyes had been removed, all the little details of the barrier stood out in stark detail. My power practically vibrated with readiness. Physically, I felt better than I had in probably my entire life. I was also left with a tingling feeling in my game functions area. Maybe a flag had been set? I guess this was the reward for taking on that frankly terrifying boss monster. It was… definitely a good incentive. It seemed odd though, that for an encounter that would reasonably require a strong group to beat, the reward seemed to be unusually singular. Oh, damn it. I’m an idiot.

“Joe, Lindsey, come closer, quickly!” I said, as I tried to expel as much of the misty essence as I could using my power, which thankfully answered my call without issue. They seemed startled by my sudden exclamation, but both edged closer to where I was standing next to the barrier. When they reached the cloud of mist, the color of which probably didn’t even have a real world analog, they both drew in an involuntary breath. I could see both of them magically ‘brighten’. Having salvaged that situation, I turned my focus inward again, to see if I was fortunate enough that that had solved my issue.

The rich feeling had returned to the background of my inventory, but now I could feel it gradually ebbing away, while the star was noticeably expanding in scope. The culprit to my ongoing weakness had revealed itself, it seemed. I looked to my pigeon’s space, and the fact that the star had never been able to draw away its power for my solution. I had managed to create that contained bubble when I had been fresh from my struggle with Heat Death, so I could almost certainly repeat the feat in the fading afterglow of that huge burst of power.

I started by grabbing a few scraps of essence from the core of the star, and moving them directly into the essence preserving liquid, returning the bottle to almost exactly the state it was in when I received it. Item duplication achieved. Well, I guess it was the essence that multiplied, but it was still nice to eat my cake and have it too. This way if I screwed something up in my next step, I could try again.

Next, I gathered up and compressed the star, pulling in the space and energy around it as well. I was encountering a surprising amount of resistance. It was difficult to describe. There was a sort of conceptual pressure, like the solar essence wasn’t allowed to be compressed any further. It didn’t feel like a physical force though, and it didn’t resist my efforts for long. I managed to crush the whole thing down enough that I was starting to be able to detect a border between the area containing the star, and the rest of my inventory. Almost there… The energy from the boss reward was nearly spent as I continued to compress and define the zone for the star.

All at once, I felt the conceptual pressure from the solar essence vanish. The entire thing shifted from something that was visibly, recognizably a star into something much more strange. The glow took on a metallic look, like a molten ball of shifting gold and silver and copper and whatever metals might be blue and violet. It also lost some of its adherence to the rules of three dimensional geometry, slipping into strange and nonspherical shapes. It still was putting out waves of brilliant radiance though, and it was still sucking up my inventory’s essence, so it still seemed to function just fine. If the cost of being able to compartmentalize the star’s effects and avoid it draining my powers was that I had a freaky eldritch sun instead of a normal one, well that didn’t seem like a bad trade at all.

With the resisting force nullified, it was an easy task to pack in the space around the star until it felt solid enough, and then give it a shove to unmoor it from my general internal space. Once it was separate, the sucking sensation immediately ceased. The non-stop drip of caffeine directly into my veins instantly dialed itself down to something much more reasonable. The background essence of my inventory was totally depleted from my latest act of remodeling, but I could already sense it returning, building back up to a healthy amount now that there was nothing to siphon it all away continuously.

I opened my eyes to find myself on my knees near the barrier, Lindsey and Joe leaning on the wall nearby, all three of us within the faint, wispy remains of the essence cloud from the orb. I stood up and summoned a sheet of paper from my pigeon’s office. I stored half of it, the left half instantly returning. Perfect.

“Close your eyes,” I said.

I looked over to confirm that they had, and then called up a scrap of solar essence. Other than the strange metallic look, and how it twisted unnaturally, the effect was the same as when I had summoned a flare by accident. The half page I had been holding was reduced, not even to ash, but to nothing at all. I smiled.

“Hah!” Joe laughed, “I saw that with my eyes closed, and I’m pretty sure I have extra eyelids!”

“Alright,” I said, “I’m sorted out. Let’s go see the next ten floors.”