A wave propagated down the ribbons of light, and the Dawn Traitor bucked under the feet of its passengers. Karen stopped cranking, straightened his back, and pointed to Silva Ravenwolf.

"You. Crank. Now. I've got to deal with this."

Silva was the highest-level hero on the raft, wearing hardened leathers and a red wolf pelt with an excessively long sword strapped to her back. The muscles rose in sharp relief on her forearms as she gripped the crank and pulled with all her strength.

"Oh my god," she said, straining to gain momentum.

"You're fire aspected," Karen said. "Burn as much spirit as you have to but keep the Traitor moving." The raft shivered as another piece of the dock was broken away by the vampire lord, further weakening the Rainbow Bridge.

"I just came back to life," Silva complained, "my spirit hasn't refilled."

Damwise Ramgy, a handsome, hairy dwarf in a long coat tossed her a blue vial.

"That's the best I've got," he said.

"It's a start," Silva downed it in one swig, and a heat shimmer started around her skin as she bent over to work the machine again. Karen ignored them. Crystal blue aura suffused his limbs as he took the bridge on foot, sprinting back toward the platform with his white robes fluttering. He moved like a badly edited film, all stutter step and bounce, traveling as a story travels.

"What happens if I try that?" Lawlimi murmured, turning his head from Sashimibandit and the others. Following his example, I responded circumspectly, shrinking my voice until it was a breath against his ear.

"The bridge is composed of all the hues of aura in such concentrated values that any one strand would instantly disintegrate a being of the diametric aspect."

"So ..."

"You would explode."

Lord Vitae paused in his assault upon the marble slabs, unhinged his jaws, and vomited a cloud of cicadas. They massed into a droning screen. Karen flared blue, and a section of the wall of insects simply stopped existing, revealing Lord Vitae about to take another swing. The ferryman was through the gap, a sapphire blade materializing in his hands, angling for the vampire's throat.

Vitae snarled, thrusting himself back with a flick of his wings. Talons tinged with acrid yellow crossed the sapphire blade, and the lurid pinpoints of his eyes flashed with arrogance and power.

>>

(VAMPIRIC GAZE Resisted)

>>

"The bridge stays open," the Ferryman said. "Other than that, I don't care what you do."

"Then bring me back my prey," Vitae grinned as only monsters can, mouth huge and bristling.

"They paid the toll," the ferryman said. "You know the law."

"More has been revealed to me in moments than you have known in all your years." His vast wings swept around to surround them like a canopy tent. "The old laws are being undone. Our world is being undone, and our escape is under the arm of a little mortal nothing. Let me have him, dear friend. Surely our long acquaintance ..." As Vitae spoke his vermin had regrouped, droning and churring their violent intent. They fell on Karen from behind as the vampire lord swung his hammer hand of rigid bone.

This was a mistake. The ferryman happened to be the most powerful NPC in Fallow beneath the angels, who were neutral. He was also neutral on any subject but his one duty and the core of his existence, bringing those dead who paid the toll back into the world of the living. To avoid his wrath, you have to do one thing and one thing only. Don't screw with the Rainbow Bridge.

The blade vanished as his aura darkened to navy, suffusing his skin, transforming it, leaving behind gleaming cobalt where there had been flesh. The cicadas covered his back and bit down, dulling their mouthparts against his indurated skin. Vitae's weapon cracked against his chest.

>>

(Bone Mallet deals 11,330 Bludgeoning Damage)

Karen, the Ferryman

Celestial Level Five (538,670/550,000)

East — Metal — Blue

>>

His response was swift, disregarding the insects, he thrust his palm against Vitae's sternum.

>>

(KNOCKBACK Successful! — Unarmed Strike deals 21,000 Impact Damage)

>>

Kicking forward, he followed the vampire through the air, hitting him once more in the same way with his other palm, sending him tumbling and scraping along the roadway. Undead were crowded under buildings and in alleys, unsure of whom to support, their gazes dull and futile, all except the vampires.

Hybrids on the wing, and others wearing the mortal shapes of men, fell on Karen like pack animals for his audacity in striking their lord.

Their teeth and claws scratched his cobalt skin, but he was faster and stronger and barely confined by the strictures of space, slipping around and between, taking a step sideways and appearing paces forward from where he had started. Blue aura coruscated over his body and especially his limbs as his hands did their harsh work.

With the side of his fist, he caved in a vampire’s skull, and with the sweep of his legs, he sent them winging away into the crowd. He prepared to renew his assault on Vitae, but the lord hadn't stayed to duel. The arm ending in that bony hammer swung down against the edge of the platform, sending shivering cracks into the marble and the granite beneath. Strike after strike, and the Rainbow Bridge sang like an instrument well out of tune.

>>

Rainbow Bridge Anchor (Structure)

Body—(127,400/500,000)

Celestial - Earth

Resists : Slashing, Piercing, Fire, Air, Crystal, Flesh

Weaknesses : Bludgeoning, Metal, Wood, Water

>>

Most of Count Vitae's abilities were useless against the platform, so he was reduced to hammering away like a prisoner breaking rocks. His musculature was scarcely contained by paper-thin skin. Twice Karen's height, with osseous spikes protruding from his forearms and back as organic armor, he was a formidable sight. But he wasn't made of metal.

>>

(Doublestrike! — Falling Star of Undying Purpose — Bonebreaker! — 61,800 Impact Damage)

>>

The ferryman landed a flying kick, spinning like a corkscrew and striking Vitae's lower leg with both feet in succession. The vampire's shin snapped, and his swing went wild. Those immense wings folded and turned down, thumb claws to the ground to help him balance. Karen followed up with another palm strike (KNOCKBACK Successful) putting Vitae over the edge of the platform onto the Rainbow Bridge. His yellow aura peaked and burned when he touched the opalescent lines, but it did not destroy him.

>>

(Vitae (262,400/330,000))

>>

Vitae laughed. "I am becoming more than I ever dreamed!" Tendrils of flesh were drawing his shattered tibia back under his skin, mending the wound as if it had never been. Karen leaped high into the air, flipped, and came down with his fist like a spear. Vitae, partially on his back, pushed himself up with his wings and swiped the ferryman aside.

>>

(Lord Vitae lands a Crushing blow — 33,100 Bludgeoning Damage)

>>

Blue light flickered around Karen, and instead of being knocked away into the void he vanished and reappeared on the bridge. Vitae lunged, his hammer splitting into bony claws, grabbing Karen and lifting him up as if he were playing with a remarkably dense child.

>>

(Grapple Successful)

>>

They struggled, but Vitae's size and hyper-enhanced strength gave him the advantage. He took a single step forward, adjusted his grip, and took them both into the air with heavy flaps of his wings. Blue and yellow aura warred as Karen attempted and failed to blink out of his opponent's claws. Their ascent was ungainly, and Vitae endured punishing kicks to his chest and ribs, trusting in his newfound blessings to preserve him. Bones cracked, and skin tore, revealing a distorted tangle of sinew and calcium woven like armor beneath. They were a hundred feet above the platform when Vitae dove, captive first, pumping his wings for maximum speed.

>>

(LIVING METEOR — Sacrificial Strike)

(Karen takes 51,042 Impact Damage)

(Vitae takes 32,200 Impact Damage)

(Rainbow Bridge Anchor takes 74,300 Impact(Metal) Damage)

(12,000/500,000)

>>

A great wave came rolling down the Rainbow Bridge. Silva was pushing herself as hard as she could to keep the Dawn Traitor moving, sweat evaporating from the heat of her affinity. The wave overtook them, rising as high as the steeple of the Sepulcher, and cracked the boat like a stick over its knee. Lawlimi was thrown, as were most of the others. The bridge would have destroyed them, but the plunge into nothingness was not much better.

I watched Lawlimi, waiting for him to reach the edge of the gray region where the game would register his death and force him to respawn in Fallow. It didn't happen. He broke through the cloud into a zone of open space among the boughs of the world tree, a region that should not have existed, that was never added to the program.

"Mythopoeia rests in the boughs of a great ash tree that roots in darkness." These are the words that began the world decades before it was realized as computer code. Mythopoeia and its satellites; Fallow and the Wild Wood and the homes of all the gods, had all been rendered in rich detail and full sensorial artifice. But there had been no reason to render the World Tree and its star flowers as interactable objects or environments. They were set pieces. It would make as much sense as designing a First Person Shooter with a fully functioning solar system and astrophysics. Mystic Seasons was already madly over budget and energy inefficient in terms of design because of Bill Yang's commitment to a living world. And if someone had created a segment of outer space, perhaps as a hidden high-level instance, why didn't I know about it?

I knew everything.

Lawlimi fell and fell, but he didn't fall very fast. He was actually slowing down as a starflower appeared, thankfully distant, with a blazing silver core as large as an island, and then a branch of the World Tree itself, a peninsula of petrified wood. He crash-landed on a mushroom.

It was broad and flat, layered like sliced meats, and he plunged into it on his back. A cloud of pale particles puffed out, some of them floating back down to the crater he'd created. I analyzed.

>>

Drissil Shelves — Celestial Fungus

These mushrooms grow exclusively out of the bark of the World Tree, fed by starlight and forgotten hopes. They have many benefits if ingested and can be utilized for Celestial Alchemy recipes. Without preparation, they will ease both hunger and thirst, but too much can bring on negative psychological issues.

>>

Players fell from the bright gray fog of Fallow like angels struck from heaven, wingless and screaming. While the physics in this zone slowed their descent, it was far from harmless, and not everyone landed on a pillowy mycoloth (any species of titanic fungus). Thomas Colonic logged off as soon as the Traitor was decommissioned.

>>

(Realhentaifan lands neck first! — 5700 Impact damage.)

(Alucard Laer — Acrobatics Fails — takes 6322 Impact Damage)

(Sashimibandit — Acrobatics Succeeds — takes 1,870 Impact Damage)

(Silva Ravenwolf — Acrobatic Succeeds — takes 3,455 Impact Damage)

(Relhentaifan is dead)

(Alucard Laer is dead)

(Sashimibandit is UNCONSCIOUS)

(Silva Ravenwolf has triggered RAGE)

>>

Lawlimi clawed his way out his crater, at the last stretch receiving a helping, if hairy, hand.

"Quite a fall," a sturdy, squat man said as he tugged Lawlimi up out of his hole. "I daresay we were the lucky ones."

"Thanks." Lawlimi did his best to brush his face free of spores. "You think this is lucky?"

"Look at us, alive when others met untimely ends. Nothing twixt us but the toss of destiny's dice, methinks." His voice was loud, like an actor in a play projecting for the people in the back rows.

"You thinks?"

He bowed, "Damwise Ramgy at your service."

"Oh," Lawlimi brushed off more spores. "We're doing this? I'm Lawlimi, no last name."

Damwise grinned, an activity scarcely discernible behind the curtain of his mustache. "Well met, friend. Let us tend to the less fortunate."

They climbed down together from the huge mushroom steps and spotted Sashimibandit, alive but inactive, not far away. Silva was easy to locate, as she was yelling and attacking the fungus on the opposite side of their landing zone. She had a long, wavy sword, a flamberge, its edge superheated by her spirit. The fungus was full of moisture, exploding with steam as she chopped and sliced.

"What's wrong with her?" Lawlimi mouthed.

"The damage resulted in an involuntary Rage. Until her Spirit is depleted, she will attack anyone who approaches."

"Good to know."

"What's that?" Damwise reached the ground first, more athletic than he appeared.

"Talking to myself," Lawlimi said, getting down and making for Sashimibandit. The other player had managed to tuck and roll as he landed, a universal method of surviving impossible falls, but the momentum had been too much, and he ended up crashing face first. In reality, his consciousness was engaged in a mini-game that would allow him to overcome the negative status condition. Until then, his avatar was unconscious.

Damwise bent down, rolled him over, and administered a potion.

>>

Health Potion

Heroic Level 1

Character regains 680 Body over thirty seconds.

>>

Sashimibandit started to look better, his nose reshaping and his ankles popping loudly back to true, but he didn't wake. Lawlimi accessed his inventory, taking stock of what he'd stolen from Mona for the first time, and he produced a small amount of sulfur to place under Sashimibandit's nose. The player's eyes shot open, his head jerking to the side.

"Geck!" Damwise gagged. "Why do you have that?"

"For science." Lawlimi put away the sulfur while Sashimibandit got unsteadily to his feet.

"What happened?"

"And lo!" Damwise began dramatically. "The ferryman fought valiantly to protect us from that foul hellspawn, Count Vitae, but that foul hell spawn attacked the bridge as we crossed it, and the ferry dumped us into a foul abyss."

"What the fuck?" Sashimibandit looked at Lawlimi.

"I think he's roleplaying," Lawlimi said. "Just go with it."

"My name is Sashimibandit," Sashimibandit said. "Is that gonna work for you?"

"Master Sash, that will do just fine." Damwise swept another bow. "You look like a good man to have in a fight."

"Yeah, so where are we?"

Silva had thoroughly tuckered herself out, and she came limping around to where they were, dragging her overlong sword.

"Anybody know what's going on?"

"We landed on the World Tree," Lawlimi said, without my having to tell him, as if it was obvious. There was nothing treelike about where they were, a massive, rocky expanse with gray fog above and perfect black horizons. To them, the starflower was a distant glow, like an angler's lure. Each piece of bark was a city block with ruptured, irregular edges.

"That's not possible." Silva caught up with them and sheathed her weapon. "There are no maps on the Tree."

"We're on one."

"Never in my life would I think to rest my own two feet on the immemorial skin of the World Tree," Damwise stated." Truly, if it is so, truly we are blessed."

"That's a big ass mushroom," Sashimibandit said.

Silva rolled her eyes at the little speech. "It's not possible. I get all the updates, read the Mystic Seasons newsletter, pay for extras. There's just no off-world stuff yet."

"Maybe this is a test zone," Sashimibandit said.

"That we stumbled into? No way?"

"We're here now," Lawlimi said. "We've got to figure out what to do."

"We could just kill ourselves," Sashimibandit said, and Damwise gasped in exaggerated horror.

"Nah," Silva said. "Not yet anyway. There's a castle on the other side of this shroom." She rolled her shoulders. "I'm in the mood for a raid."