EPILOGUE

TWO YEARS LATER

They were in a dark dungeon.

ExDrollTroll—a name only meant to be temporary, though it had stuck for months now—yanked his pixelated sword from the blocky skull of a green goblin-like creature. The blood that sprayed out was a collection of tiny red squares consisting of two colors—bright red and a darker red for shading. It wasn’t the least bit life-like, but Carey had always enjoyed that style, like the pixelated RPGs he’d grown up playing in the nineties. The retro pixel-art style was making a huge comeback, especially in VR.

Will cast a fireball at another goblin. The ball was composed of three simple colors, white, yellow, and orange and made a crackling sound as it passed, lighting up the stone walls. As soon as the fireball hit the goblin, the creature’s eyes bulged in its head and all four limbs extended cartoonishly before its body dropped in a smoldering heap. Collectible items were flung from the corpse—a Health potion and a sparkling scroll.

Beatrice had also chosen to be a magic user. The game’s spellcasters were overpowered at the moment, which made magic fun but almost like cheating. Carey made a mental note to nerf the spells a bit more to make it fair.

“Pretty fun for a module,” Will said. “You should expand it into a full game. I’m sure Roger will fund it. These are procedurally generated dungeons and everything?”

“Completely random every time,” Carey said. “A hundred levels generate below the surface, and each level gets progressively harder.”

Will whistled.

“Question is, will Roger let me sell it for traditional headsets,” Carey said, thinking of a 60/40 profit split—the 60 percent of that money going not to Roger, but to Ben Lukas’s family. Ben was listed in the credits as one of the creators, after all.

Bea swiped her wand across the air. A column of light caught one of the goblins and zapped it into a pile of ash, more items spilling out.

“Let’s get out of this dungeon and head back to town,” she said. “I need to upgrade this wand. But I like this… Pixel Revenant, it’s called?”

“Yup.” Carey said. “Still needs some polish, but it’s getting there.”

“Not bad for a game that contains 322 spells.”

“And 129 different types of enemies to sling them at,” Carey said.

“You guys hungry?” Will said. “We’re supposed to meet Wally and Ara for dinner, remember?”

“And drinks,” Bea said.

“Uh-huh. Just one round this time, not like Saturday. And no shots.”

Beatrice giggled. Carey snapped his fingers, and the world of Pixel Revenant dissolved around them. Now, they were in a much more graphically enhanced game—the textures almost lifelike. Carey’s eyes turned orange and he had a tail. Will wore a brightly colored robe, and his right hand was wrapped in a fiery spell. Beatrice sprouted snow-white wings.

“What do you think?” Will asked. “One quest?”

Beatrice shook her head. “Wally and Ara should be at the restaurant in an hour.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back,” Carey said, accessing his menus and logging off, leaving the world of Astros. The others soon followed.

They woke up in their comfy VR chairs, which functioned similarly to the pods but were meant for shorter sessions. Soon, they joined Wally and Ara at their favorite restaurant near the office.

As they devoured plates of ribs slathered in barbecue sauce and endless, warm baskets of cornbread, cracking jokes and making small talk like usual, Carey silently thanked his maker—God, the universe, or whatever other grand designer that might be up there—for giving him these friends and this job. Every day, he found himself giving thanks. Honestly, he still didn’t feel worthy of this new life, but he tried as best he could to appreciate every moment and treat others with fairness and respect. Gone was the toxic internet troll he used to be. He barely remembered that guy.

Carey had a different mission in life now: to help bring Luminether Online to a world in serious need of help. L.O., as they all called it, wasn’t just a game—it was a miracle treatment set to help millions of damaged people, just like it had helped him to overcome his anger and self-loathing.

After dinner, they decided to catch the new Marvel movie—except for Carey, who went back to the office for a bit more coding. The module was almost done. He wanted to show his parents, who were coming up for the weekend to visit. He also planned to hit them with the news of his engagement to Ara. She had said “yes” to his marriage proposal only a week ago, even crying and jumping into his arms.

Carey had promised not to work too late. It was Friday, after all. When the movie was over, Will, Bea, Ara, and Wally practically had to drag him away from his computer for a round of drinks at a new lounge that had just opened downtown.

Carey stuck to his usual non-alcoholic iced tea with a wedge of lime. He was quite boring nowadays, no longer the party animal he used to be, but that suited him just fine.

Truth be told, he’d never felt more alive.

~

THE END

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