“Damn it!” Astral plopped Zeke’s body onto the floor then slid down the cold dungeon wall, slumping on the ground. She let out a large sigh. At the moment she was stuck somewhere within the middle floors of Grognak’s dungeon, hiding in a small grotto she found. She’s been trying to get out of the lair for about an hour now, but it’s been a struggle for her. Navigating the labyrinth and fighting monsters alone, whilst carrying Zeke’s unconscious body was quite the task.

To make matters worse, something in SeraphStar has changed. The extent of this change is unknown to Astral, but immediately one thing is clear. What was once a bustling starter dungeon now feels like an abandoned cave, after what had happened earlier.

————————-

“You traitor!” Astral yelled at Setna as she ran to Zeke’s body. Fueled by a sudden surge of adrenaline, she jumped past the stomping foot of Grognak and landed next to Zeke.

Something had changed. An effect Astral had never witnessed or heard of was now infecting Zeke. He was currently unconscious. “No such thing exists in this game.” She thought to herself. “Screw killing the boss, I’ve gotta get out of here and find help.”

Astral threw Zeke over her shoulder and left the large ornate boss room. Outside, was an entrance facility for the boss. When she entered, the place had a long line and members of the guild were setting up players for the fight. Now, not a soul was here. Furthermore, Setna’s gone. Astral swore she saw her leave the boss room, but now she can’t find a trace of her.

“Where are you running off too, little one!” Grognak roared.

“What the hell?!” Shocked, Astral watched as Grognak’s body burst through the gate to the boss room, and collapsed onto a nearby mosaic.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Astral drew her blade. “Since when can bosses leave the boss room?!”

The giant pushed himself up onto his feet and bumped his head on the cave ceiling. “Ow!” Grognak stumbled around in pain.

Trotting out of the way, Astral avoided the demon lord’s tomfoolery and swung her sword in a large arc, casting the skill ‘War Whip’. Crackle! Her blade grew in length flew out like a leather whip and slammed right into the giant's leg, leaving a large red mark in its path. In response, Grognak’s hands covered the injury and he wailed in agony.

“That should buy me enough time.” Astral sheathed her sword and carried Zeke off into the dark depths of the dungeon.

——————————-

“Ah!” Zeke yelled as he came too. He jumped up, as his instincts told him he was still in danger. After realizing he wasn’t in the boss room anymore, he relaxed.

“Oh thank god you’re okay.” Astral sighed in relief.

“Huh? Wait what?”

“Oh nothing… I’m just glad you’re awake.”

“Wait where am I?” Zeke’s head peered past the small outcove he layed in and looked at the familiar dark stone corridors of Grognak’s lair. “We’re still in the dungeon?”

“Yeah, we’re somewhere in the mid-floors. I carried you up here after you passed out. I stopped here, because honestly carrying you is really tiring.” Astral explained.

“Hold on, I passed out? How is that even possible? And are you trying to call me heavy?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant, and, yeah, I don’t know how, but you were unconscious earlier. Plus I’m feeling actual fatigue right now. Like real life fatigue.”

“Huh? How the hell is that possible?” Zeke pondered.

———————-

In SeraphStar an artificial neurotransmitter is used to simulate reality. It directly implants the digital world into the brains of users and stimulates their senses to produce touch and smell. The technology is extremely impressive, to the point where virtual reality is nearly indistinguishable from actual reality.

That being said, the developers of SeraphStar held back the game from being a true replication of reality. Certain feelings like fatigue, illness, pain and unconsciousness simply don’t exist in SeraphStar or in certain scenarios are minimized extremely. This is done to make SeraphStar not just a simulation of reality, but an even better reality than real life itself. However, Astral and Zeke were currently experiencing something different. For some reason, the game had changed and these aspects of real life left absent from SeraphStar were back.

—————————

“Gah!” Zeke moved his hand away from the wound in his side, where Setna’s arrow pierced.

“Don’t touch it, it’s just going to hurt more.”

“Ah.” Zeke couldn’t believe what was happening. His wound hurt. It actually screamed out in voracious torment, like nothing he had experienced before. Nothing in SeraphStar was supposed to hurt this much. “Can’t you heal me or something?”

“I’m sorry.” Astral lowered her head. “I don’t have any healing spells, and I’ve already used all my health potions of you. I thought they would help, but it seems like their potency isn’t the same as it was before.”

“The hell is going on? What’s happening with this game?” Zeke complained in the open air. This immense pain made him feel more vulnerable than ever before. Then a thought came to Zeke. If he’s in such throbbing pain in SeraphStar, what’s his body going through in real life? “Hey, Astral? I’m going to log off real quick, I’ll be back in a second though…”

—————————-

Logging off in SeraphStar is easy. Players can simply open up their stats menu within the game and hit the button in the lower left corner. This will suspend their character’s status and placement, then shut off the neurotransmitter. Within a few seconds users will reawaken in the real world.

—————————

“What the fuck!?” Zeke yelled out. “The buttons gone! It’s not there!”

“What?” Astral replied.

“I can’t log off!”

—————————-

“We’ve just gotta keep moving. There’s nothing else we can do about this, right now.” In time, Zeke recovered enough to be able to walk and Astral and Zeke decided to make their way back through Grognak’s dungeon. Even though they had already explored the entire lair, the place was undoubtedly different. No longer was the cave littered with adventures and treasures. Now, it seemed like a hollow memory of what once was.

“That’s it.” Zeke turned a corner and arrived at the entrance of the cave.

Tall rustic cabins and stands housing shops and inns lined the walls of the cavernous entrance. Each of them stood in silence. A lingering scent of blood and ash filled the air. Not a soul remained within the once popular area.

“This is kinda creepy, not gonna lie.” Zeke limbed past the receptionist desk.

“Yeah.” Astral kneeled down and inspected a red and black corpse laying on the floor. “Look at this, I've never seen anything like it in the game before.”

The body was bloody and deformed. It smelled of rotten food and decomposing flesh. Many of these corpses paraded the cave entrance. “That’s disturbing.” Zeke commented.

“Indeed.” Astral poked the body with her sword. The corpse rolled over onto its side revealing its large, empty eye sockets.

“What the…!” The zombified corpse suddenly arose in front of Astral. The monster swung out its arm and left a large bloody gash across Astral’s chest.

“Hey, we got a problem here, Astral.” Zeke readied his guitar as hundreds of zombies began awakening all around him. “Revenants.” Zeke read the name on the health bar of the monsters.

Astral drew her sword and pierced the chest of the revenant in front of her. The zombie slid off her blade and collapsed onto the ground. “This is too many for us, we’ve gotta run.” She swung her sword and decapitated a nearby revenant.

“No argument here.” Zeke jumped over the decaying corpse of a revenant and dashed towards the exit. He bobbed and weaved past the grabbing hands of the zombies. As a revenant landed its touch on his shoulder, he swiped his guitar into its face, then took off again.

Revenants began to pile together and form walls preventing the two adventures from leaving. Astral spin slashed past a large group of zombies and tackled her way through the barrier they formed. She stumbled and crashed onto the floor.

Piercing, a howl burst out from Zeke’s vocal cords, as the revenants surrounding Astral froze. He ran over and helped her up.

The two adventures ran with all their might and hacked their way through a horde of zombies. Finally they made it past their vile presence and broke out into the sunlight of the Mindel forest.

Out of breath, both Zeke and Astral panted. “Hey they're still following us.” Astral pointed, as revenants slowly burrowed out of the cave and into the forest.

Zeke and Astral dashed through the crystal forest without looking back. They ran and ran until they finally collapsed near the entrance of Mindel, right in front of the fence where Zeke first encountered Astral. Fatigue overtook both of their bodies.

Smoke and ash corrupted the air. Loud cackling and churning of flames filled Mindel’s streets and buildings. Screams of pandemonium and constant loud crashing consumed the sounds of the city. Speechless, Astral and Zeke stared up at the city in front of them.

——————————-

“Not bad.” Drimrock leaped off of a small rocky perch onto his feet. From the mountainous tops of mount Merba, he had clear view over the ensuing chaos within Mindel.

“Ahahah.” His deep tones let out a muffled laugh. “Does this make you upset, father! Are you angry at what I’m doing!?” The lord shouted into the air.

“Ugh.” Drimrock sighed. “Eh, that’s enough fun for now. I’ve got more that needs to be done. Now, now, where did that old hermit run off too.”

Drimrock walked down the mountain tops onto the other side of the Mindel valley.

—————————

Astral and Zeke stared at the burning city of Mindel from the outskirts. The town was in pure eruption. They watched as buildings collapsed and fires wooshed into the sky. Revenants wandered the streets and tore into houses and shops. At the heart of the chaos, in the town square, Setna sat there on the central fountain. The elegant marble structure spurred water into magnificent shapes and Setna stared at the piece of art as it flowed.

“Well, shall we go in?” Astral asked.

“Yeah, let’s do this.” Zeke replied.