My grandfather used to say that the more we changed ourselves, the more we changed the world. Growing up, I thought it was old folks’ ramblings. It wasn’t.

The first time I went to Crystal Spires, it felt larger than life. Some in the media called it the crystallization of gamers’ hopes and dreams, and I wholeheartedly agreed. Only a few days later, after some weird and terrifying experiences, all the glamour and mystery had vanished. It was still beautiful, breathtaking possibly, yet it was just a place.

An archangel approached our table. “Is there anything I could assist with?”

Max tossed him a ruby red token I’d never seen before. I didn’t need to know its value to imagine how much I could get on the dark web for it. A table in the Spire’s Sunset restaurant was in the tens of thousands.

“I’ll start with an aperitif followed by our daily menu.”

The archangel nodded. “Would you like the new meta taste upgrade? It really brings our tech flavor and is virtually bug free.”

“I’m good.” Max waved her hand. “Just be sure to take your time.” She engaged the table’s privacy settings. The archangel nodded again and left us alone.

I checked my quest log; over thirteen hours remained till the end of my quest. Thanks to my dev vision, I could also see a warning icon beneath the description. If I were to guess, I’d say that in twelve hours I’d get a warning notification that time was running out.

“What—“ I started only to have Max raise her finger. Most likely she was trying to hack her way into the ghost forum. After seeing what Legion was capable of, I had my doubts she’d succeed, but I wasn’t the sort to check the price tag of a gift card. If she managed, all the better for me.

Relaxing in the couch that passed as a chair, I looked around the room. The restaurant was largely empty—the seasonal championships had just started, dragging most proplayers and their entourages away from social activities. Those that remained were either extremely confident or didn’t care about the season. It was telling that I didn’t recognize any of the gamers I was usually following, though I did spot three members of a techno cult in the far corner.

“Techno cults?” I asked pointing discreetly in their direction. The question caught Max’s attention, for she glanced their way. “Didn’t know they were allowed here.”

“Some players believe in that stuff,” Max replied staring in the center of the table. “Virtual blessings, reduced lag, all that nonsense. They got famous, so they can do whatever they want.”

The cult contributions had to be substantial. The rigs could be bought for a few thousand each, on the cheap side, so to have them become regulars at a place like this must have required a lot of will and convincing. I wasn’t even sure if Vesperia’s terms of service allowed for that, despite Crystal Spires not technically being considered part of the game proper.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Max slammed her hand son the table. “The link you gave me is trash!”

“The site changed address?” That wasn’t surprising, although it was unusual an info broker wouldn’t be able to find a history or redirect log somewhere.

“It’s been completely scrubbed.” She relaxed back in her seat. “No cash echoes. The only thing found was a dead end forum that hasn’t been updated since the nineties.”

“The nineties?” It sounded like a stretch.

“Hacker humor,” Max scoffed at me. “It means ‘get lost’ in my circles. It’s not that difficult to change date logs to anything you like.”

I tried not to shrug. Hacker humor wasn’t something I understood. “Maybe Claire will have better luck,” I said, opening my menu window.

“No!” Max snapped, jumping to her feet. “We don’t have to get him involved.”

“Why not?” That keeps hitting a nerve. “It’s part of our deal. He keeps an eye on me, and I solve the quest for him.” It was a great deal, especially for Claire.

“He can’t right now.” Max’s avatar trembled. “He needs some time to relax.”

“Okay.” I typed in a quick message and sent it to Claire. No way I was going to take her word on it. Plus, if he was in any serious trouble, I wanted to know. “So what do we do? Enjoy dinner and hope things will work?”

“Idiot!” Max said under her breath and sat back down.

Almost on cue, the archangel appeared with a bowl of fractal neon shapes and two glasses of chandelier cocktails. I took a sip, but was only able to feel bland sweetness. The way Max gulped down her drink, I couldn’t tell if she was able to taste it at all.

“Could you find anything on Flicker?” I attempted to keep the conversation going.

“Completely purged.” Max grabbed a few fractal shapes and threw them in her mouth. “Easy to do if you’re rich. I think I know his dark broker so I’ll ask her. That’s not the important thing.”

“Oh?” I took a fractal shape. It felt rubbery and squiggly to the touch. “What is?”

“I’ll show you,” she stood up and left the table.

I glanced at the weird appetizer for a few seconds more, then left it on the table. It felt too much like a virtual worm for me to dare taste it.

Max took me across the room, to a part of the restaurant that was marked VIP Only. The two archangels that stood there moved aside as we approached, letting us pass. In another life, I would have enjoyed feeling like a fake celebrity. Instead, I felt uneasy.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we made our way down down a crystal stairwell. The walls on all side were covered with mini-portraits of past and present celebrities.

“The VIP lounge,” Max replied. “It’s quieter.”

“Okay.” That wasn’t much of an explanation. “Why are we going there?”

“I found someone who was part of the quest.” Her voice voice sounded hushed. “They’ll help you to finish your dumb game.”

The stairwell ended in a large study, built in the stereotype image of the nineteenth century: walls covered in wooden shelves of large books right up to the ceiling. A simple wooden table stood in the far part of the room, in front of a massive open fireplace. I had seen the same setting in nearly every game I’d played, although the quality couldn’t compare. Ignoring the dulled sensation I could almost believe I was in an actual library.

“Fancy.” I looked around. From what I could tell every single item had its own unique texture.

“Yeah,” Max sighed. I caught a note of bitterness in her voice. “Come on.” She went to the table.

“So we wait here?” I joined her sitting down. The seat felt firmer than the one in the restaurant, giving the sensation of leather.

“Just for a bit.”

“You know, we could have stayed upstairs?” I cracked my fingers. It wasn’t as satisfactory as when I did it in real life. “At least we would have eaten something.”

“It wasn’t my—“

“You have new message, Sarah!” Twinkle said cheerfully interrupting her. It was at that point I remembered I hadn't muted him. My eyes darted towards Max, who was staring at me as if I had farted in a crowded room. Even with the mass production of companion AIs, there still were a few instances when having them blabber freely was considered inappropriate. High class VIP lounges were definitely such places.

“Twinkle, mute,” I quickly said. “Sorry about that.” I opened my inbox manually. At least that was only visible to me. The message was from Jeff.

“No big deal,” she said through clenched lips. “Anything important?”

“Work.” I skimmed through the message. Apparently there was a change in tomorrow’s schedule. Another person had quit and Jeff had rescheduled me for the noon shift. “Nothing important.”

By the look on her face, it was obvious that Max didn’t believe me, but she said nothing. For my part, I had no intention of convincing her.

“A lot of your online history has been deleted,” Max said all of a sudden. “I thought it was because you were a nobody, but every day since we met, more and more has been disappearing. Game history, comments, videos.” She tapped on the wooden table. The food we had in the restaurant appeared, along with a new cocktail in front of her. “It’s not a purge, or a scrubbing. Someone is systemically buying things related to you and deleting them.”

“I know.” I remained calm. “Someone has bought everything regarding the quest. At first, I thought it was Claire.” There was a slight pause. “Or you,” I added with a smile hoping it would make her feel more sympathetic towards me.

“Not only the quest.” Max took her cocktail, but didn’t drink from it. “Other parts of your life. Check.”

Other parts of my life? It wasn’t difficult to erase someone’s existence from the net. Governments and hacker collectives used to do it all the time. I was too poor to subscribe to a carbon copy backup program, though even those didn’t provide a hundred-percent guarantee against ghosting. My greatest protection, like billions of others, was that I was so poor as to be nobody. No one paid attention to noobs like me... or at least they hadn’t until I started the hundred level quest.

“Does Claire know?” A feeling of vulnerability swept through me. I had experienced it several times this past week, and each time it felt worse, like an octopus that had lodged itself in my throat. Every now and again, it would stiffen, making it difficult for me to breathe or swallow.

“Probably. He doesn’t like me asking about you.” Max clenched her fist. “You or the quest.”

“I see.” I reached for my empty glass. The moment my fingers touched it, it filled up again.

“It’s spreading. The sniffer I placed to track your data packets vanished. Claire wouldn’t say it, but some of his bots have gone missing too.”

“If someone wants to erase me, why not erase me?” Each word felt like ice as if left my mouth.

“Because it doesn’t work that way,” a new voice said.

I turned around, hoping to see someone who would make everything clear to me. Instead, I saw Firestarter. She was using her custom nymph avatar, exactly the same as I remembered from my dream. Without thinking, I jumped up and used my fast equip shortcut. Nothing happened. I tried again, only to have a warning window in front of my face.

Quote:

Weapon and combat use is not allowed within Crystal Spires.

Access to all relative skills and items has been blocked.

Thank you for your understanding

No weapons. My pulse doubled as I watched Firestarter stroll to the table and take a seat. Her face was completely emotionless, like a cat before the pounce. I had been dreading this ever since I learned she had been doing the same trials I had in search of quest clues. Now here I was, in the same room as her, completely unarmed and unready.

“You set me up?” I turned to Max. She looked down. “Why?”

“I didn’t want Claire to disappear,” she whispered.

“I see.” I guess even dark brokers had their enemies. “So what happens now?”

“Nothing.” Firestarter leaned forward. “We’ll remain here for the next thirteen hours and do absolutely nothing.” Her accent sounded different from what I remembered in my dream. Possibly from Georgia. “Or you can log out.”

It was doubtful she was offering me a way out. I sat back down.

“And if I do?” I continued with my tough act.

“If you log on in the next day, you’ll appear here.” She moved closer to me. “And never complete the quest.”

So much for trust. Max had finally gotten her wish—she kept me away from Claire and made me pay for it as well. Right now, she had received everything she'd hoped for, plus the nice bonus of seeing me terrified and humiliated. I was definitely going to remember this.

“Or you can earn a hundred K” The chocolate-tanned nymph rested her head on her hand. “You’ll never pass the gate, so might as well earn something.”

“And how do I do that?” I tried to open my menu. An Under Temporary Maintenance window popped up. Max hadn’t left anything to chance. That was why she didn’t want me sending any messages. My one choice was to stall for time and hope he’d write back. “You already got all the hints.”

“I don’t care about the hints!” she hissed as if I’d just spat her in the face. “I want to know about Legion.”