“No! No no no!” Paul screamed as the connection cut, ejecting him from the game. Ripping off the headset, he slammed his fist into the table hard enough to crack it, the wood groaning and creaking from the impact. There was some yelling from downstairs, but he paid no mind to it, focused solely on his whirling thoughts.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, he carefully set the headset down on the table, holding back the rage he felt licking at his chest. As soon as that was finished, he let his mind go blank, hurling loose articles of clothing and a few shoes at the wall.

Paul had been playing Leveled Plane for over twenty years, knowing the ins and outs of just about everything in the game. His guild, the BEARDED BOOTS, was known to be one of the top ranked guilds in the game despite their strange name. They were fiercely protective of their members and almost never failed in a quest or boss fight.

Now, it was gone. All his work, years of his time and energy, wasted. It made his chest feel hollow, his gut churning uncomfortably in both anger and sorrow.

A year ago, two new guilds had risen through the ranks, their members consisting of most of the younger generation. Other guilds and players mostly ignored them, assuming they would eventually peter out as most new guilds did.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the two guilds took a new approach to solidifying their grip on the game leaderboards, one that violated an unspoken rule within the game populace. They hoarded every single revive potion found in the game, meticulously distributing them between members of their guilds, and only members of their guilds.

By the time everyone else had discovered what was going on, it was far too late. The shops were out of stock of revives and the two new guilds, STEEL HEARTS and FOUNDATION, had placed members to guard the shop entrances. It wasn’t long before the other guilds banded together to destroy both STEEL HEARTS and FOUNDATION.

Sadly, the two new guilds had gained a large following after hoarding the revives, inciting may top players to join them. All the old guilds were crushed, including Paul’s. Any members of the old guilds that took up arms against the tyranny were defeated until their revives ran out, destroying their avatars and save data. Everyone had two options: switch to either of the new guilds or be mercilessly slaughtered. Many chose the former.

His rage fading, Paul looked around at the mess he’d made of his room, breathing heavily. Then, sighing, he began picking up the mess, knowing his wife Susie would kill him if he didn’t. She’d always been a neat freak.

It took him a few minutes, but once that was completed, he let himself fall back in his desk chair, his gaze settling on the headset for Leveled Plane. He’d been the one to make the decision to stand against the new guilds, the rest of the BEARDED BOOTS following in his wake. It was his fault that so many avatars were deleted.

He felt a crushing guilt as he realized that he may never meet some of his friends again. Gary and Jessie had traded phone numbers with him, but Harry and Brandon were a different story. Without their phone numbers, Paul would probably never see them again in-game, since he no longer had their avatars as part of his friends list. His friends list would be empty right now, as though he’d never played the game in the first place.

Really, it was his own fault for never insisting on keeping in touch. Gary and Jessie had bullied him into trading numbers, so he really should’ve done the same thing with Harry and Brandon. But he hadn’t, and now he had to come to terms with that.

Chuckling bitterly, Paul pushed those thoughts to the side. Maybe he’ll meet up with them again in-game somehow. They could still get lucky. Either way, there was only one thing left for him to do.

Placing the headset over his head, Paul let the system start up, smiling slightly as he was pulled back into Leveled Plane. Breezing through the character selection process, he reflected on the choices that had led him to the avatar he’d used during his last play-through. A metal arm with a revolving cylinder had made up his weapon, almost like Mega Man’s blaster from the old video game series.

It had been fun, launching energy attacks from his arm at enemies, but the feeling had grown stale after a while. There was no danger to it, having a ranged character like that. It didn’t get his blood pumping, which was why he’d founded the BEARDED BOOTS in the first place. He’d needed an outlet.

This time, instead of a ranged character, he decided to go with a crafting character. Selecting the book with the gear, he made his way through the rest of the process, cycling between hundreds of options before finally settling on what he wanted.

In the end, he’d selected a large hammer, one end of it flat while the other end tapered into a rounded point; in other words, simple blacksmithing hammer. Moving into the STAT selection process, he made sure to put most of his STATS into DEX, INT, and STR for starters. They would be extremely beneficial when starting out as a blacksmith, with DEX allowing him greater control over the hammer, INT giving him the knowledge of his creations, and STR giving him the strength to shape metal properly. Overall, he felt it was a good decision.

Then, he waited. There was a tense silence as the game seemed to hold its breath, Paul shaking slightly from excitement. He always loved the moment when the game decided his CLASS, picking the one that best fit his overall STAT distribution and character selection.

“WELCOME, PAUL HARTFORD,” a voice boomed, and Paul whooped. “YOUR DECISIONS HAVE BEEN JUDGED, AND YOUR CLASS HAS BEEN SELECTED TO BE ‘ARTIFICER.’ WE HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR TIME IN LEVELED PLANE.”

“Ooooo! I got lucky with this one!” he cried as the world started shifting around him, dropping him off in his starting area. “ARTIFICER’s rare and super useful!”

He found himself wondering about his plans for the future of his avatar, remembering what had happened to the BEARDED BOOTS. Perhaps he would join FOUNDATION, just to give himself some revives. At this point, he didn’t really see any other options.

It may ironically be a good thing for the player base, now that there were only two guilds instead of the hundreds that came before them. Guild rivalries would disappear, allowing players to focus more on quests, dungeons, and boss fights. Besides, nobody had managed to clear even 23% of the main story yet. Maybe this would allow them to band together and finally beat the game.

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when his blurring surroundings materialized into a large white room, a small doorway cut into one wall with a couple of hallways extending out the sides. His stomach plummeted, and he groaned, dropping his face in his hands.

“Of all the rotten luck…” He’d managed to land in the one beginner area that was literally impossible to clear. The chances of even being sent here were so slim that only one or two players would see the area every few years. It had no name, but all the players had started calling it the TRAINING ROOM.

Some had tried to hone their skills here, hoping to be the first to conquer the TOWER, the COLOSSEUM, and the ABYSS. Every single one of them had failed. Nothing ever worked. The farthest anyone had ever managed was halfway up the TOWER, and that had been more luck than skill.

Feeling immensely disappointed, he prepared to log off so he could delete his avatar and start over again in a different beginner area. It was disappointing, especially with the stroke of luck he had in getting the ARTIFICER CLASS, but there was nothing else to do. He wouldn’t even clear the first floor of the TOWER with his character build.

That was when he began noticing the idiosyncrasies of his surroundings. There were some blankets off to the side, dishes and silverware left in haphazard stacks around them. A couple more blankets were set up in the corner of the room, these ones looking more like bedding. An empty can of soup was rolling idly across the floor, and Paul found his eyes tracking it for a while, fascinated.

Everything pointed to the fact that there were already other players here. Players who appeared to have been here for a long time. Paul couldn’t fathom why. Choosing to stay in the Training Room was the height of insanity, especially knowing how useless the place was. It only provided food and water, nothing else. Without monsters to fight, there was no way to grow strong enough to conquer the TOWER.

He was curious, sure, but he wasn’t curious enough to stick around and find out what was going on. So, with a sigh, he brought up his menu and swiped it to the side, his finger hovering over the green logout button for a moment before pressing it. Paul closed his eyes, ready to be sent back to his room… only… nothing happened.

His eyes snapped open, and he found himself staring at a system message, glowing brightly in front of his face.

“SORRY. THE LOGOUT FUNCTION IS UNAVAILABLE DURING COMBAT. PLEASE FIND A SAFER LOCATION BEFORE TRYING AGAIN.”

“…Combat?” he whispered, just before the ground rolled beneath him, sending him to the floor with a loud yelp. Letting out a curse that the system turned into something kid-friendly, he pushed himself up off the ground, staggering back to his feet. Before he had time to regain his bearings, a blast of wind knocked him through the air, throwing him on his back.

A loud laugh came from his right, and he turned his head as a female figure crashed straight through the wall, coming from one of the storage rooms. She flew across the room, her skin smoking as she flipped to land back on her feet, skidding along the ground. Digging her long wooden staff into the ground, she brought her momentum to a halt, a bright grin adorning her face.

Watching her, Paul reflected that she may have been pretty if he were at least twenty years younger. She looked to be a high school student, or maybe a college student with a youthful face. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

Her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, showcasing her high cheekbones and the smattering of freckles dotting along her nose. A simple green tee-shirt covered her chest, tucked into a dark brown skirt with black leggings underneath, eventually ending in a simple pair of brown walking boots that covered almost half her calves. The whole ensemble was worn and fraying, looking to be well-used and well-loved.

Small cuts and gashes covered her frame, red light spilling from each mark on her lightly tanned skin as the system’s way of showcasing where she was injured. One was a neat horizontal line that crossed her forehead, and she brought the back of her hand up as though wiping imaginary blood out of her eyes. She was soaked in sweat and panting, but her emerald eyes stayed trained on the hole she’d just appeared from.

Paul’s own gaze was drawn to the hole in the wall, the interior of the other room still invisible behind the layer of dust in the air. The crackle of electricity reached his ears, and he gasped as a glowing blue figure slowly stepped out of the hole.

Small sparks of electricity clung to her frame, flickering around her. Her pitch-black hair was cut just below her chin in a short symmetrical bob, the tips glowing blue from the residue light she was producing. Her outfit was almost identical to the other female, although she was wearing a light blue shirt instead of the green.

Her deep blue eyes were glowing, sparkling as electrical currents ran through her irises. With her angular face and stern expression, she looked much older than Paul suspected, assuming the two girls were around the same age. Unlike the first girl, though, there were no freckles dotting her face, her skin pale to an almost unhealthy degree. Both girls were on the shorter side, appearing just under five feet tall, with the one in green appearing to be an inch or two taller than the other.

The girl in blue stumbled as she walked, Paul grimacing as he noticed one of her feet had been twisted completely backwards, slowly spinning back around as her health regeneration kicked in. That would be excruciating, even with the dulled sense of pain that came from playing Leveled Plane. And none of this considered the state of her right arm, which hung limp and twisted off her shoulder, almost as though someone had tried tearing it off and was only marginally successful.

Then his thoughts stuttered to a halt, and he’d felt as though he’d blue-screened for a few seconds as some half-formed ideas started taking shape. In the game, it was impossible to twist limbs in the way that he was seeing. The system just didn’t allow it. On top of that, the way the girl in green had wiped something from her face, trying to clear her vision…

Hoping he was wrong, Paul flicked through his menu for a moment, keeping an eye on the two girls. They appeared to be watching each other closely, so he guessed they were in the middle of a fight. Finally finding what he was looking for, Paul disabled the gore censorship setting implemented by the system.

He wished he hadn’t. Green girl’s shirt was more red than green, dripping blood from the many lacerations across her skin. Blue girl looked much worse, pieces of white bone sticking out of her limp arm, slowly healing. Her body was black and blue, her pale skin marred by hundreds of bruises. She coughed harshly, her good arm cradling her chest, blood flying from her mouth and splattering across the pristine white floor.

“Nice hit,” blue girl said, Paul trying his best not to puke. She grinned, baring her bloody teeth. “That last one fractured my ribs, ya know.”

“Whatever,” green girl scoffed, her grin widening to an unsettling degree. “Not like it matters anyways, you’ll be back to normal in a few seconds.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Sure enough, Paul watched as blue girl’s body pulled itself back together, the bone protruding from her arm sinking back beneath her skin as her leg finished twisting back into its normal position. Less than ten seconds later, she looked as good as new.

Paul wondered why green girl didn’t take down blue girl while she was healing, figuring that would be the wisest course of action. Reflecting on what he’d just witnessed, though, made him realize something important. Green girl had been knocked through the wall by something, and blue girl had come through right afterwards…

He shuddered, scooting away from them along the floor. Whoever these two were, they weren’t normal by any sense of the word. They were obviously playing on Realistic mode, and anyone willing to play on that mode should be sent to an insane asylum, in Paul’s humble opinion. The fact that they could brush off debilitating injuries the way that they were, only showing signs of mild discomfort, reinforced that thought.

“About time for my second wind, don’tcha think?” blue girl teased, and Paul felt his body start shaking as her smile abruptly flattened, her mouth becoming a thin, impartial line. The sudden change deeply unsettled him, her eyes going suspiciously blank as two long knives were flicked into her hands.

A wave of cool, damp air washed over Paul from the opposite direction, and he turned as green girl stayed silent, lifting the tip of her staff slightly off the ground before slamming it back down again. He felt a shudder run through the floor before gasping as a huge wall of earth rose from the ground, rushing straight towards blue girl, flowing right around the pillars in the room, growing exponentially as it grew closer and closer.

This time, he wasn’t thrown off his feet by the rolling earth, having already been laying on the ground, something he was grateful for. Faster than he thought possible, the wall was upon the girl and bowled right over her. There was a blur of motion, too fast for Paul to track with his eyes, and green girl abruptly flicked her staff to the side, knocking one of blue girl’s knives away as she suddenly flickered into existence right before green girl.

The two engaged in a flurry of blows, blue girl darting around green girl at absurd speeds, her knives filled with crackling blue energy that lanced down green girl’s staff, making her wince. Green girl did her best to keep up, but Paul could see that she was slowly losing ground to blue girl. She was just too fast.

Blue girl gave a grunt of pain as the staff cracked against her skull after she missed a counter with her knives, sending her body tumbling. Green girl immediately capitalized on the opening, swinging her staff in an upward strike… which was too far away to strike blue girl. Paul was confused for a moment before a rush of wind blasted blue girl away, her back slamming against the far wall.

Green girl smirked, swinging her staff over her head to bring it cracking against the ground. Another wall of earth formed, one that spanned the length of the entire room. Snapping her fingers, she triggered the wall to rush forward, intending to crush blue girl against its surface.

There was a crack of thunder, a rush of wind, and then a loud crash as the wall of earth reached its target. Her body tense, green girl kept her eyes trained on where blue girl had last been. As the wall sunk back into the earth, she gave a sigh of relief, her muscles relaxing as she wiped some more blood from the gash on her forehead.

“Serves you right, talking a big game like that,” she said, leaning against her staff, finally showing her exhaustion. The blue girl was nowhere to be found, a streak of blood and some mangled flesh the only indicator that she’d ever existed.

Paul stayed silent, staring at the green girl from his place on the floor. That… that was way more than he’d expected from them. He’d heard horror stories of how hard it was to increase your STATS in Realistic mode, especially considering that level increases didn’t work like they did in the other modes.

These two girls, though, were well beyond what beginners should be capable of. If anything, from what Paul had seen, these two were just under the capabilities of some of the lower mid-level players. With STATS like theirs, there was a real chance that–

A flash of motion, a streak of lightening, and green girl’s head was suddenly halfway across the room, blood flowing in crimson streaks as it landed, bounced once, and rolled to a stop. Her body collapsed a moment later, blue girl standing behind her, the knife in her right hand caked in blood.

“Ooooh man, that felt good.” She stretched her arms– no, her arm over her head, her back cracking loudly. Her entire left arm was missing, blood spurting from the stump at her shoulder, her sleeve painted red. Letting out a hum of satisfaction, she made her way over to the corner to wait for her friend(?) to revive, dropping unceremoniously to the ground.

Paul’s eyes went wide once he realized her ploy. Blue girl had cut off her own arm, smearing the blood against the wall before the earth wall could crush her, utilizing the limited visibility created by the earth wall to make her way to the ceiling with a SKILL of some sort. Staying completely silent, she’d crept her way along while green girl convinced herself that blue girl was defeated.

The moment green girl’s guard was down, though, she struck. Dropping from the ceiling, blue girl positioned herself perfectly to land directly behind green girl, her knife slicing cleanly through her neck. The execution of the maneuver was impeccable, each little piece flowing together perfectly. And the absurd pain tolerance needed to even consider such a move…

Shuddering, Paul let out a breath through his nose, considering his options. Now that they were finished, the area was no longer designated as a combat zone, meaning he could finally log out to delete his avatar. That would be the smart move, especially considering the danger that these two players presented.

But… well… Paul hadn’t kept the BEARDED BOOTS alive for as long as he did by playing smart. Sometimes a little recklessness paid back dividends.

He pushed himself back to his feet, his clothes rustling in the process. Blue girl’s eyes immediately snapped open and focused on him, her muscles tensing. It only took a moment for her eyes to start glowing again, signaling the use of whatever SKILL that was.

“Who’re you?” The query was flat and harsh, making Paul flinch. He steeled his nerves, taking a deep breath before flashing the girl a, hopefully, welcoming smile.

“Call me Paul, nice ta meet ya! Anything I can say that convinces you not to kill me on sight?”