The armor was crafted from ultra-fine layers of Titan steel, a material so unbalancing that it hadn’t been included in the actual game, existing only in the Maker’s sandbox server. The visor precluded any hint at what kind of face lay behind it, if there even was one. I suspected the dark templar was more automaton than power armor, though it was possibly being directed by Orobos himself. The sword was pure energy, though it seemed to devour light rather than produce it, and it rended Ilwi’s shields like they were bubbles of sticky candy, dragging their remains in an arcing trail in its wake. The wizard backed away, not bothering to attempt an incantation. I could tell he was accessing his menus, intending to repurpose this deadly machine in the same way he had stolen Karcharoth’s loyalty.

The hound reacted aggressively to the newcomer, abandoning its torturous game with Haggitha to pounce on the templar. But the weight of the huge hound barely registered with the machine, and his teeth only scratched the surface of those dark, reflective plates. Rather than address Karcharoth, the templar jerked forward after Ilwi. Its movements were awkward, somewhat at odds with the air of ancient and perfect artifice that accompanied the armor, but they were effective enough. Ilwi scarcely managed to avoid being skewered by the black light blade, and it effectively disintegrated a handspan of his robes, as well as a layer of skin underneath. A look of frustration crossed his face, then confusion, as whatever he had been trying to do in his menus failed to take effect. Instead of joining his entourage, the space knight cut him in half so neatly that at first Ilwi remained standing, and blinked, before awareness abruptly left his eyes as the game systems caught up to the effects of an unfamiliar weapon. Ilwi’s torso drooped forward, sliding off his hips, which fell backward in short order.

My hands were loosening, and I could stand, though I wasn’t recovered enough to be good for much else. Karcharoth barked fiercely when Ilwi collapsed, then seemed to lose interest in the whole affair and padded back up the stairs.

“Should I thank you?” I asked.

Rather than responding, the armor popped, splitting down the center of its chest to reveal a white-furred kitsune as the pilot. Shippo disentangled himself from the jumble of mechanisms within. The power armor had been designed for someone twice as tall as my companion, and it appeared there had been some jury-rigging to allow him to function in the armor. The sword winked out of existence, which was its own sort of comfort, and Shippo climbed down.

“They let me borrow,” he said, trying to groom himself. The armor had matted his fur, so he was sticking up in places and cowlicked in others.

“Orobos let you borrow it?”

“Yeah, for occasions.”

That was worrisome in the extreme. Shippo could be as compromised as the Nezumi leaders on Eternity, a blink away from being turned into a puppet for the demon. I reserved any brooding on that matter for a future date, however. For now, we were saved. My next move was to get the ingredients together to remedy Lawlimi’s paralysis. Haggitha helped, and in a few minutes, our original group was reassembled. Everyone but Dokutsu, whom I had heard nothing about since the conflict at Kurunere’s mansion. Sashimibandit and Damwise were both able to dig themselves out of their respective snowbanks, neither looking particularly pleased with the situation, but Silva was thoroughly trapped, and a quick scan revealed that she had already perished from suffocation.

The lab was a wreck, the circles destroyed, along with much of our equipment and the reagents, but I wasn’t prepared to resume the ritual quite yet.

“Alright,” I said, “what does Orobos want?”

“To beat Acarus,” Lawlimi said. Sashimibandit gave him a look I couldn’t interpret. It was clear there was more to say there, but Sashimibandit was either unable or unwilling to communicate it. Damwise nodded happily along, comfortable in continuing his supporting role outside of combat.

“This is true. The Great Spirit desires a peaceful union with New Arda, and the Disciples of the Worm will make that impossible to achieve. The power of the Book of Old Names is the best option we have to repair this wound in the world.”

“I am also opposed to the wholesale spread of the Acarus virus,” I said. “Am I to interpret your position that Orobos will not oppose my taking on the mantle the book promises to provide, and using it for that purpose?”

“He would rather I had it,” Lawlimi said, “but I’m not going to stop you from finishing the ritual. You’re the one who completed the quest line, it wouldn’t be fair for you to have to hand it off to someone else.”

“Fair doesn’t matter,” Sashimibandit said. “Just get it over with so I can log off.”

“If Orobos is satisfied with this outcome, why did he send you all to steal the book in the beginning instead of reaching out to us for cooperation?”

Sashimibandit wouldn’t answer me, but Damwise was more than happy to elaborate. “Our original instructions were to bring the book back to Eternity for review, and your party was to be left out of the equation. There was some confusion over whether the ritual could be completed by anyone or only by the Children of the Maker, and it had to be protected from the possibility of the latter, err… the former. It was a chaotic situation, and we could have handled it better. You shouldn’t blame the Great Spirit for our fumbling the situation. Silva is very competitive.”

The explanation rang hollow for me, as I had seen how tight Orobos’s control could be over the players that had been forced through his Engine. But I didn’t have the power to eject them all, so there was nothing to do but press on if Hush wasn’t inclined to interfere, and after that fight, it seemed like he wasn’t. Haggitha and Lawlimi were exchanging private messages, so I left them all to visit with the Unnamed God upstairs. He was still at the bar, cleaning yet another glass with yet another stained rag, while his original rag still concealed the jewel. The bartender behaved like a simple NPC, and in a sense he was, as you didn’t interact with ADIs in the game world directly. They were multifaceted intelligences that operated everything from behind a curtain of avatars and elemental forces. Still, the Twelve tended to associate themselves heavily with their god bodies, role-playing with their digital forebrains while the rest of their consciousness managed routine tasks, similar to what I had done when I was plugged into the help function AI. The bartender gave me the impression that most of his awareness was elsewhere.

“Was there a point where you would have intervened downstairs?” I asked.

“No.”

“I didn’t think you would tolerate open conflict in your domain, especially someone editing your AIs.”

“The Children of the Maker are free to squabble as they choose. Are you ready for the jewel?” That answered that.

“Yes.”

He allowed me to use his rag to continue to dampen the jewel’s otherwise highly inconvenient radiance. There was still prep work to do, or redo, as the ritual area had been largely obliterated by incantations and cannon fire, and Orobos’s heroes helped with the cleanup. I was outnumbered. Shippo was still my companion, but everyone in the basement with me owed Orobos something or had otherwise been compromised. Even Haggitha had been revived by Lawlimi with the demon’s help. The idea that they would simply allow me to complete the ritual and take the mantle for myself was hard to believe, and yet that seemed to be what was happening. From the contents of the book, the ritual itself didn’t seem to be the sort of operation someone could hijack at its climax. Even if that was possible, they didn’t need me anymore. If Lawlimi wanted to complete the quest himself, he was advanced enough to undergo the rite using the reagents we had on hand. They could have forced me out, but they hadn’t.

(Where are you?) PamyuPamyu hadn’t contacted me since her death on the mountaintop, and I was relieved to receive her text. I explained the situation in detail, outlining my concerns as well as the players involved.

(I’ll be there in a few minutes. Fallow was weird, there are moderators there scanning everyone who dies for infection. They don’t give out a lot of details, but you can tell they’re freaking about Acarus. I was worried they would confiscate the Hammer, but they didn’t notice it was anything special.)

(That’s useful to know. I’ll look forward to having an ally in the room.)

When PamyuPamyu arrived, we were putting the final touches on the summoning circle repairs, and I moved into my protective triangle to begin reading the incantation from the book.

“Ba weep gra na weep ninnybong…” There were a lot of nonsense words and extensive jabberwocky, so much that the other heroes grew bored and stopped paying attention. PamyuPamyu was delighted to see Lawlimi again. She was so expressive that I nearly lost my place, and Haggitha looked like she wanted to separate them. It wasn’t obvious that the ritual was having any effect, but my senses, both as an avatar and as an ADI, provided me with some hints about what was happening beneath the surface. The incantation was activating scraps of code that had been hidden from normal game operations, and these minor programs were crawling out of the ether and gathering in the summoning circle, momentarily invisible, interacting in a way that was unsettlingly reminiscent of the cicada swarms, combining into something new.

The Jewel of Vallorn was sitting in a bowl of purified water covered by Hush’s rag. When I finished my chanting, the rag lifted and the room went silent as the nearly unbearable brightness of the jewel poured free, only to be caught again by the thaumaturgical boundary of the circle. The barrier didn’t negate the light, but captured and condensed it into a physical column that instead of burning out our eyes was merely difficult to look upon. There was a vague suggestion of a shape within the column, but the radiance allowed for no detail, less than a shadow, a faint distortion.

“This is the last will and testament of William Yang.”

For a moment, no one spoke, but the program didn’t require further input.

“I, William Yang, hereinafter referred to as the Testator, with a place of residence at Tarrasque, Alaska, being of sound mind and not acting under duress or undue influence while fully understanding the nature and extent of all my property, hereinafter referred to as the Estate and of this disposition thereof, do hereby make, publish, and declare this document to be my Last Will and Testament, and hereby revoke any and all other wills and codicils heretofore made by me.”

The voice was like what one might expect a blazing pillar of light to sound like, complete with angelic overtones and reverberations. My creator seemed to have been unable to resist this kind of showmanship.

“Wait,” PamyuPamyu said. “What—” But the program wasn’t taking any questions, and whatever she was going to say was overridden as it continued.

“I hereby nominate and appoint Leto Starscream Yang, hereafter referred to as Lawlimi, as the Personal Representative of my Estate. He currently resides in Mystic Seasons as Resident Player ID 07151989. I hereby direct that all my debts and expenses be paid after my death at his discretion as may be reasonably convenient, and I hereby authorize my personal representative, hereinafter appointed, to settle any claims made against my Estate in his absolute discretion.

“I devise and bequeath my property, both real and personal and wherever situated, to the following Beneficiaries.”

Holding my breath wasn’t really necessary, but it felt appropriate for the situation.

“Abigail Wa, who is my daughter and is entitled to one hundred percent of my entire estate.”

Sashimibandit threw his hands up into the air. “Who the shit is that?”

“I am not familiar with the name,” I said. It seemed I wouldn’t be inheriting the Maker’s fortune, but it wouldn’t fall into Orobos’s hands either. This quest had been a charade to uncover the identity of the true heir, which was deranged, but not totally out of character for Bill Yang, all things considered. The fact that Lawlimi had been nominated as the executor was a detail that the room hadn’t quite processed yet.

“That was my name,” he said. “My real name.”

“What was?” Sashimibandit said in an exasperated voice. “That Leto Starscream shit? That’s not a name, it’s a mashup of somebody’s favorite cartoons!”

“It’s my name, it’s my real name.”

PamyuPamyu’s mouth was hanging open, but she didn’t say anything.

The column of light hummed. “Is the Personal Representative present?”

“I am?” Lawlimi said.

“Please enter the circle to confirm your identity.”

Lawlimi didn’t hesitate, though he did have to squint as he vanished inside the brightness.

“Identity confirmed.”

Lawlimi came back out, somewhat unsteadily. “I just got a lot of prompts. I’m supposed to find this Abigail girl. She has to come here and confirm her identity.”

“Uh,” PamyuPamyu said.

“Honestly, that shouldn’t be difficult. I can talk to the moderators, and they can work their way up the channels. Obviously, they can’t give anyone’s personal information out, but the company has to know who this girl is, what server she’s on. This is a legitimate will. It just flashbaked a bunch of legalese about that into my brain. Pamyu, isn’t your company handling the other will? Do you know anything about a daughter?”

“Uh,” PamyuPamyu said, rather unhelpfully.

“Are you alright?” I asked Lawlimi. “This exercise appears to have both confirmed and disproved your identity in one stroke. Your status as a Yang is confirmed by the will, but you weren’t named as a beneficiary. What do you think that means?”

“Cheese and crackers, I don’t know. I’m not really thinking about that. It’s my real name, I’m real. That’s what I think. He acknowledged my existence, so that’s a big step. We can figure everything else out once we find this Abigail girl, maybe she knows more about all this than we do. He kept her a secret all this time, there has to be some reason for it.”

“Uh…” PamyuPamyu said.

Far from being disappointed, Lawlimi appeared enthusiastic about his new role. What did any of this mean for Ilwi’s claim that my friend was actually a scaled-up USB memory stick plugged into a life support tank? This provided another layer of identity verification for Lawlimi, but it didn’t prove that he was a biological human being. It was becoming more and more likely that he and I were the same. Though our data had been stored in different locations, and under different circumstances, we were both fractal uploads of the Maker, part of his experiment in digital life extension, and all of us incomplete. Ilwi’s belief that he possessed the totality of the Maker’s memories up to the point of his creation was obviously false, otherwise, he would have known that he could not receive the mantle. That would now go to a young woman none of us had yet encountered. How could we be sure she even played Mystic Seasons? Given the nature of Bill Yang’s final wishes, I doubted the girl even knew that he was her father. If there had been a prior relationship, she could have come forward independently and staked her claim without recourse to this pageantry, though I had a sense she still would have had to go through a fantasy trial of some kind, the Maker could not have helped himself.

“This…” PamyuPamyu said. “That…” She was behaving very oddly. It was an understandable shock, given how strong her position had been that Bill Yang died without leaving any children behind. She had been correct that Lawlimi was not the Maker’s biological son, I was reasonably certain of that now, but there clearly had been a biological issue at some point. Not his late wife’s child, obviously, or her existence would be public knowledge. There had to have been an affair. It was also possible that the Maker had not been aware he was a father until near the end of his life, after the loss of his spouse.

What did this mean for Orobos and Eternity? Sashimibandit was clearly frustrated by the twist, and Damwise gave a short speech about the vagaries of fate and family that he’d have to have memorized from somewhere. With Lawlimi as an executor, the heir could at least be kept informed about what was happening in her father’s world. Perhaps this quest line, the placement of the will within the game, wasn’t for the benefit of the girl at all. It could have been our Maker’s way of keeping his creations relevant and involved. If Abigail Wa had simply been called to a law office and informed of her inheritance, Lawlimi and I may never have had an opportunity to meet her, but now we were guaranteed a connection, a validation of our existence. By placing a legal document inside of Mystic Seasons, he had ensured that we would be a part of whatever happened going forward, even if it meant our destruction at the hands of someone who might not approve of Autonomous Digital Intelligences being quite so autonomous as we were. The opinions of the heir on the matter of ADIs would be very important going forward.

We needed to find her, and we needed to keep her away from Orobos. I wasn’t sure that I could trust Lawlimi to keep her safe, not if Orobos could override his independence. When Abigail Wa entered Mythopoeia to claim her inheritance, if she wasn’t already here, then she would be vulnerable to the demons of our world.

“Lawlimi,” PamyuPamyu said, then covered her mouth with her hands as if she was embarrassed.

“Hey,” he said, “what’s going on? You seem freaked.”

“That’s me.” It was barely more than a whisper behind her hands.

“That’s my real name.”

Sashimibandit’s eyes went black.