Meg stared up at the silver light of the full moon and wondered how many times she had ignored its beauty. All around her the once tranquil forest was alive with the cheers and groans of those who had banded together to stop the end of the world. But she focused on the moon, her large violet eyes wet with tears.

She could not bring herself to look at the dead trees, ripped out of the ground and broken to smithereens. Their limbs and trunks turned black by the Serpent’s poison and wrath. The ground too was affected. Torn apart and pitted with deep ugly gouges from spells and skills that had turned the darkness of night into a brilliant and deadly light show.

She sat atop the Serpent’s still warm corpse with her lance beside her, the pointed end jammed deep into the hard black scales and the thick meat that lay beneath. Small streams of green blood seeped out around the lance and hissed with steam as it touched her armor but she ignored it.

The Eternal Serpent was dead, the forces of Hell had been driven out of the mortal realm and for the first time in centuries all fifty kingdoms were present and unified.

She and the others had done the impossible. They had saved the world. At least that was what they had done narratively. Meg and everyone else knew the end would still come. The notice of closure had been on everyone’s home page for the last six months and rumors of it had been circulating for at least three years.

For the last fourteen years the Tattered Realms had been her home away from home. More than an escape from the bullies and out of touch adults it had become her career. The only reason she had been able to go to college was because people liked watching her play the game. She still wasn’t entirely sure why.

And now it was all over. The sequel would be out at the end of the month, she already had a code to install it early and if she wanted she could pay a ridiculous amount of money to carry her maxed out character over to the next game. But to her this was an end to something important.

She was twenty four now. A far cry from the shy ten year old whose father had helped her install the game on his VR system.

Staring up at the moon she wondered where that kid had gone. How had she become the woman she was today? How had she taken an axe wielding warrior and turned her into an armored master of the lance? The answer lay in the forty thousand hours she had played but in the moment it was all too fleeting and vague to give her any real comfort.

The end was near and on the horizon was a new beginning that terrified her. Could she repeat her success? Did she even want to? There were so many questions bouncing through her head and without proper answers fear had taken root in the back of her skull. A hulking cruel thing that told her she would crash and burn. All that she had achieved was luck and with the start of this new game everyone who watched her would know that she was nothing more than a scared and lonely little girl who couldn’t pay attention in class, couldn’t stand the feel of denim on her skin or the angry screech of the buzzer at school basketball games. A weirdo and a loser.

They would point and laugh and unsubscribe and all that would remain was a game she wasn’t good at. A chill ran down her spine and she clenched her eyes shut and tried not to cry. But the warm tears forced their way through her eyelashes and poured down her face just as the Serpent’s blood seeped out of it’s many wounds.

The sound of delicate wind chimes broke through her fear and she opened her eyes to see a black text box floating in front of her. Written in the plain white text of the game’s early days were the words

CONGRATULATIONS LADY STARBURSTBLADE, THE REALMS ARE SAFE THANKS TO YOUR COURAGE AND SKILL. ENJOY YOUR VICTORY, YOU HAVE EARNED IT.

Meg took a deep breath and exhaled all the fear out of her. She knew it could very well return but for the moment it was gone and she felt some of the elation that her comrades were feeling. She closed the victory box and looked down at them.

All three hundred and fifty guild members had assembled for the final battle and thanks to some fast heals and insane buffs all of them had survived albeit in varying stages of health. They stood below her in small groups of twos and threes and fours, others stood alone like her, processing the great weight of what they had done and what lay beyond it.

There were Knights and Assassins, Divine archers, and Spirit Walkers, Ocean Dancers and Beast Masters with their maxed level pets, and Lunar Phalanxes, resting on their massive shields. All of them were covered in the blood and viscera of the fight, faces blackened with the shadowy essence of the demon riders they had slain, their armor scorched by the Serpent’s poison.

The healers were the only ones not celebrating. They rushed through the crowds, strumming their instruments, singing songs, and blasting anyone who called out with Divine spells and when their chi ran out they shoved potions and antidotes into hands and down throats.

“Hey Meg!”

Meg looked up at her friend Dorian, a tiny dark skinned woman with a head of black curls that cascaded out from under her silver helm. Her pegasus Crusher flapped his blood stained wings and lowered Dorian down to the Serpent. She swung her short muscular leg over the saddle and slid off her mount, landing smoothly next to Meg. Crusher flapped his wings twice and flew off into the approaching clouds.

Meg reached up and grabbed the leather bound hilt of her lance and pulled herself up to her feet. She was a half giant and stood five feet taller than her Nebelshoy friend who was only three feet tall. “Glad to see you made it,” Meg said.

Dorian grinned up at her and pried off her helm. “I spent most of the fight harassing the Serpent’s back foot,” She said. “Not as much danger as the front but damage is damage.”

Meg looked behind her and saw in the far distance the Serpent’s rear left leg, bent and twisted and missing several claws. “It looks like you and your riders more than pulled your weight,” She said.

“God that was insane,” Dorian said. “I must have carved up thirty demons on my own before I even saw the Serpent. I wanna do it again!”

Meg laughed and pried her lance free of the Serpent’s hide. With a thought the lance sank into itself and took on the shape of a simple leather wrapped stick big enough to hang from her belt. “I lost my dragon and my shield,” Meg said. “I’m not in a hurry to repeat that fight anytime soon.”

Dorian pursed her lips and put her small hand on Meg’s hip. “Sorry buddy,” She said. “I didn’t know how rough the front had it.”

Meg shrugged. “It’s okay,” She said. “I’d rather Blitzen go out with a bang than just disappear when the servers are killed.”

Dorian groaned and said “Don’t remind me.”

“I wish it wasn’t ending,” Meg said. “I hate the unfamiliar.”

Dorian looked around for a spot not covered in poison blood and sat down. “It won’t be so bad,” She said. “It’ll be like a new game plus, except the graphics will be better and they’ll probably force a stupid shop function on us until we riot.”

“Why do they always do that?” Meg said. “Fifty expansions and each one had some kind of dumb ass shop.”

“Because the noobs and whales paid into it,” Dorian said. “Man how long have we been having this conversation?”

“Since we protested the first shop,” Meg said.

“The game ends but some things never change,” Dorian said.

They were silent for a time, looking at their comrades below and the devastation around them. “I’m gonna miss the hell out of this place,” Dorian said.

“Thanks for being the best damn wingman a knight could ask for,” Meg said.

Dorian laughed and nodded. “Thanks for teaching me how to break an iron golem in three hits,” She replied.

“It sucks we couldn’t get it down to two,” Meg said.

“Maybe in the sequel,” Dorian said. “Hey have you figured out what you’re going to do? I think I’m going to try a Divine Archer this time around.”

Meg looked at her comrades and all their classes but none of them appealed to her. For fourteen years she had walked the path of the knight and anything else just didn’t seem right.

“A lot of people keep asking me that,” Meg said. “But I don’t have an answer. Nothing sounds right to me. Not even Heavenly Knight.”

“Have you read about the new classes?” Dorian said. “Imperial Inquisitor sounds good. Like magic Sherlock Holmes.”

Meg brought her home page up in a small black browser and navigated to the sequel’s information page with a thought. She chose the page labeled classes and skimmed through them. They all sounded lavish and rich with questlines and leviathan skill trees, even the old classes would be upgraded to insanity. But they were all geared for combat or support.

She felt the sticky warm blood of the Serpent that had managed to sneak past her armor and reach her skin then looked down at all the damage their battle had caused. She felt the weight of fourteen years rush over her. Countless deaths and resurrections, the terror of a goblin horde overwhelming her, the burning touch of a Midnight Demon, and the awful sickness that filled her guts in the early days whenever some beast would rip her friends to pieces.

Her right hand shook at her side and she took a moment to calm down. She was done with it all. She had saved the world hadn’t she? Why did she have to march into the next game looking for a fight. Why couldn’t she just enjoy the game?

“When’s the last time you enjoyed this game?” Meg said.

“Tonight,” Dorian answered.

“But this was special,” Meg said. “When’s the last time this game was more than stats and strategies or comparing quest rewards to maximize our levels?”

There was a long silence between them and somewhere in the night they heard crying and understood exactly how the person felt. “Expansion fifteen,” Dorian said. “When the LootMen challenged us to beat their time in the Crystal Keep.”

Meg winced at the mention of the infamous dungeon. She’d had more than one nightmare about that place since crushing the record of their rivals. It was one of the reasons why the dungeon had been removed five years ago.

“For me it was when I soloed the Hall of Screams,” Meg said. “I still had fun playing but it was different. It was a game, a math problem, something to beat instead of just live in.”

“You were the Queen of soloing dungeons,” Dorian said.

Meg grunted and swept her hand over the mess below them. “And what did it get me?” She said.

“Fans, money, free drinks, a million thirsty dudes trying to get nudes,” Dorian said. “And you got to meet the development team.”

“I want more than that,” Meg said. “Whatever this new game holds for me I want to be in it for the fun and the wonder. I want to look around and say LOOK AT THIS CRAZY WORLD. Look at how much fun I’m having.”

“That’s uh, too deep for me,” Dorian said, laughing.

“Sorry,” Meg said. “I’m just twisted up, I’ll be back to my old stabbing ways in no time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dorian said. “You’ve been playing since the first open beta. A little existential dread is natural. Hey you know they finally made an official merchant class in the new game?”

The word merchant slithered into Meg’s ear and raced through her skull. She shuddered and felt her heart rate speed up. She searched for the right page and skimmed it quickly and smiled. It was described as a support class with an emphasis on roleplay and commerce, for those players who want to battle the economy instead of demonic incursions.

She imagined herself without her armor, a heavy pack on her back, bulging with artifacts and items. A heavy pouch on her hip, sagging with the weight of the coins inside. No quests or records to set. Just buying and selling and wandering. Seeing the world for what it was. The way she had when she had started all those years ago.

And if it didn’t work out then she could always jump back into the saddle and carve her name across the fifty kingdoms all over again. A small twinge of anxiety crawled up her spine and she squeezed her hands into fists and focused on the tiny dancing flames of inspiration that stood against her encroaching self doubt.

“Uh Meg, you okay?” Dorian said. “You’ve got that I just figured out how to crush the dungeon boss look on your face.”

“Dorian you’re a genius,” Meg said.

“I know I am,” Dorian said. “But uh why do you say that?”

Meg reached down and scooped the small woman up and spun her around in the air. Dorian yelped and clung to Meg’s thick forearms for dear life. Laughing she set Dorian safely down on the dead Serpent and waited for her friend to recover.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Meg said. “I’m going to play a merchant!”

“Awesome,” Dorian said. “Just remember who gave you the idea when I ask for a discount.”

“I’ll charge you double,” Meg said, smirking.

A small black box appeared in the right hand corner of her vision and delivered a message from her chat moderator. CHAT IS GOING NUTS. HELP.

She closed it with a thought and sighed. “My moderators are getting creamed,” She said. “I’ll meet you back at the Imperial City for the party.”

“What’s left of it anyway,” Dorian said. “See ya.”

Dorian raised her hand to the sky and they heard the hard flap of wings and a moment later Crusher swooped down to pick her up. Meg brought her menu up and started the exit protocol. The future might be terrifying but at least she had finally found a path to walk. But how far would it take her? And would her fans follow?

LOGGING OUT 5….4...3..2.1 EXIT COMPLETE