The board of directors largely lacked imagination. Most of them used avatars that approximated their real bodies, though I suspected that they were more flattery than true imitation, with excess skin and fat smoothed away by a scrubbing module as a part of their character creation. A Viking king was present, as well as a dashing international man of mystery, but they were by far outnumbered by tired old men who no doubt resented the practical necessity of meeting within a digital environment. Their bodies were scattered over three continents while their minds were fed a datastream that produced the interior of a skyscraper that only existed on a small private server belonging to Mystic Seasons. Rows of bay windows provided a dramatic view of a generic megacity; it could have been anywhere in the world. It was detailed enough that cars could be seen in the streets below, mostly gridlocked, while pedestrians picked their way around the traffic.

PamyuPamyu was at one end of the long table, dressed in her orichalcum armor, with the hammer of a god propped against the lip of the table and a bizarre array of companions providing her with moral support. Lawlimi was at her side. He was in a suit, and could have been mistaken for one of the company men’s sons or employees except for his mechanoborg augmentations. There were faint lines beneath his skin like the patterns on a circuit board, and the X-Cannon was anything but subtle. Shippo and I were further back, both of us receiving our share of odd looks. The kitsune was securely ensconced in the dark power armor, and hours of practice and improvements in his balancing mechanisms meant he was moving less clumsily than before, a truly intimidating presence matched against the general contempt of the board. There had been challenges to PamyuPamyu’s ascension, but her firm had publicly confirmed the unusual nature of Bill Yang’s Last Will and Testament after it became clear that none of them would be able to benefit from denying it any longer.

The Maker had kept lawyers on posthumous retainer, and after Lawlimi notified all the names on his list there had been a flurry of preemptive filings and briefs to ensure PamyuPamyu’s position was secure. She didn’t own enough of the company to be able to dictate her desires to the board—the Maker had been forced to sell too many of his shares to keep Mystic Seasons afloat, and Darkest Horse had become a subsidiary of Macrodense, the largest computing concern in the West. The heir of Bill Yang couldn’t change the game on her own, and she had only been summoned to meet with the board because they wanted to buy her out entirely. They had already offered an immense sum to that effect.

“No.”

Mr. Lambert, the chairman, blinked. “This is a big decision. Take time to think it over.” He didn’t say “young lady,” but it was in his tone.

“No,” she said, smiling at all of them and bouncing one of her legs. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m happy with what I have. Really, I’m still taking inventory, and I’m not going to get rid of anything until I’ve had a chance to feel what it means to have what I have, you know? Besides, I’ve got friends in the game, and I don’t want to leave them behind.”

“If you weren’t going to consider our proposal, why did you come?”

“Because stuff is happening. Big stuff, bad stuff, and you guys should probably know about it so you can do something.”

“Bad… stuff?” The chairman looked like he was preparing to adjourn, or at least ask PamyuPamyu to leave so that the board could talk about us in her absence.

Lawlimi tapped the table with the arc of his cannon. “There’s a virus loose on New Arda. It’s infecting players, and so far there hasn’t been an organized response to remove it.”

Chairman Lambert made a dismissive gesture. “We’ve already been briefed on that. Something about cicadas? The ADIs are supposed to be addressing the issue.”

“That’s the Acarus virus, but there are two. Bill Yang designed a program called Orobos. It’s found a way to hijack player avatars by inserting itself into their neural nets.”

The Viking sat up straight. He looked middle-aged, with gray streaks in his hair and powerful shoulders, and he was the only board member I was certain actually played Mystic Seasons. “I’ve heard about Orobos. He’s the demon behind the Dark Tower quests. What are you talking about, hijacking avatars? That’s not possible.”

“I’ve seen it,” Lawlimi said. “Once Orobos infects a player, he can interact with them even after they log out. He’s literally inside their neural nets, in their brains. He can make them see and hear things like they’re in an augmented reality game they can’t turn off.”

“That’s science fiction,” the chairman said. “The ADIs are smart, but they don’t have interests outside of their programming.”

“Orobos was programmed to have interests outside of the game. He thinks he’s doing what Bill Yang wanted, and now there’s no one to tell him otherwise.”

“We haven’t had any briefs from the moderators about this. The Acarus issue is being dealt with. Apart from that, this isn’t a matter for the board. An investigation can be instigated on a much lower level.” He addressed PamyuPamyu. “If you and your friends have game issues to report, I can have my assistant provide you with the proper channels for that sort of thing.” He looked up and to the left, sending a silent message, and the door to the conference room swung open a second later.

A young secretary appeared with a tablet and tried to usher us out of the conference, but no one was moving.

“Take some time to think about our offer, Ms. Wa,” the chairman said. “How about we meet again in a week or two?”

Lawlimi fired a shot over his head. The yellow core of the orb burst against the wall, tearing a hole in the paneling. “We’re telling you that people are in danger. Lives are at risk. The problem is growing outside of Mystic Seasons.”

“Who are you again?” At a nod from the chairman, the secretary dialed a call for security into her tablet.

“I’m a Resident Player,” Lawlimi said.

“Ah, that explains it.” There were stereotypes about Resident Players, called Fish by nearly everyone in casual conversation, and one of those stereotypes was that they quickly lost their sense of reality because their bodies were floating in a soup. Disconnected from the physical world, they could become increasingly disconnected from other human beings as well until they had difficulty distinguishing between players and NPCs, real crises and in-game drama. That wasn’t always the case, as many Resident Players had healthy support systems and contacts outside of Mystic Seasons, and they coped with the unreality of it all quite well. A lot of the people who underwent the procedure and were placed in a tank didn’t have long to live anyway, their bodies were failing them, and they wanted a few months or years of feeling alive again. But Residents with dementia and similar symptoms had affected the reputation of the program, and people made assumptions.

A man with a security badge and an oversized pistol at his hip entered the conference room, but rather than try to escort us out, he bypassed our group and headed straight for the chairman with a pained look on his face.

“What is it? They’re right there—guh!” The chairman made a surprised noise as the guard grabbed him by the back of his head and vomited cicadas into his face. Shippo reacted first, opening part of his suit and launching a floating chrome sphere above the table that emitted violet light, generating a semisolid membrane that sealed the room. I wasn’t sure of the complete effect. It didn’t appear to be a defensive field, and given that the suit came from Eternity it could do potentially anything. The guard, or the virus inside of him, seemed to understand the change, and twisted his head to send a spray of insects at Shippo as well.

Lawlimi moved around the table, his cannon answering in a steady staccato of pale yellow bolts that tore the guards’ clothing and scorched the flesh beneath. Lawlimi channeled his energy a little differently and used one of the Endowments he’d added while power leveling on Eternity.

>>

(Forceful Shot — Rapid Shot — X-Cannon deals 3,210 damage)

(Knockback Successful)

>>

Lawlimi’s target was driven toward the wall, away from the chairman, who was furiously wiping at the insects clinging to his face. Empowered blast after empowered blast rocked the infected guard until he couldn’t stay upright. Chunks of his body were disintegrating, but he didn’t die. The Acarus virus was regenerating the damage almost as fast as Lawlimi could deal it.

PamyuPamyu stood up, hefted the Hammer of the Unnamed God, and sent it spinning over the conference table. It hit the guard like a meteor, instantly ashing him and leaving the cicadas that remained disorganized, buzzing and crawling as harmlessly as their natural equivalents.

The secretary screamed, and I turned to look at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “That was just a lot.” Not someone who played the game much then. Even without real pain, the violence could feel incredibly real to someone new to full immersion. I was going to say something comforting, but was distracted by Shippo stabbing PamyuPamyu through her chest with the void sword.

>>

(Surprise Attack! — Vital Strike — Blade of Unlight deals 17,300 Piercing and Disintegration Damage)

(PamyuPamyu is Stunned.)

>>

It wasn’t enough to kill her, she had advanced as much as Lawlimi and I had, but the Hammer was across the room, and it would take her precious seconds to recover.

“Shippo! Stop!” Lawlimi shouted, but I knew it was pointless. Inside the dark armor, Shippo’s eyes would have turned black. Orobos had corrupted him, waiting to make his play at the perfect opportunity. But I wasn’t a helpless little cephalopod anymore. There was a bandolier of potions, tinctures, and alchemical grenades around my waist, and I sent two of them flying at him in quick succession. The first cracked against his hip, triggering a web effect that bound his legs with hundreds of sticky gray strands. The second was a very traditional dose of alchemist’s fire that exploded against his visor and covered his head in a cowl of green flames. With a relatively minor expenditure of mana, I activated my new Firebending endowment to enhance the effect. I didn’t expect either bottle to be the end of the conflict, but at least I could cause him enough inconvenience to give PamyuPamyu a moment to recover, and maybe give Shippo an opportunity to resist control.

Ignoring the flames, Shippo pulled back his sword and casually decapitated the nearest board member with a backswing. Something happened then that I could only barely recognize, but that made me realize how stupid we’d been.

“Lawlimi! Shoot the sphere!” The area effect wasn’t a force field in the sense of absorbing damage, but it did disrupt certain forms of processing. Just like on Eternity, Orobos had ways of preventing players from logging out. He wanted the board to be trapped here, with the only escape being on the end of his sword. When the first board member died, I imagine he was allowed to enter his adytum, but that he took something else with him. Orobos wouldn’t make a scene like this for the pure joy of it—that weapon didn’t seem to be a normal part of the game. It was only a guess, but I believed that anyone he killed would be carrying a piece of Orobos with them, and thereafter be under his thrall. And we had brought him here, all because we’d taken for granted that the demon’s position on allowing PamyuPamyu to accept her inheritance meant that he wouldn’t interfere. Perhaps we’d been distracted by our rewards as well, lulled into a sense that the quest was over and we should be able to move on with our lives, overconfident that our newfound strength would allow us to face any obstacle that presented itself.

The heavy shoulders of the dark armor popped open to reveal more armaments, missile ports that fired a barrage at Lawlimi. He dodged, but they were firing in sequence, and jumping around amid mounting explosions didn’t afford him much opportunity to aim, so his own shots went wild. Rather than cutting himself free of the webbing, Shippo simply pointed his sword and projected a beam of Unlight down the line of board members on one side of the table.

Half a dozen members, including the Viking, burst into clouds of dust. Some of them had already stood up, and one managed to dodge the attack by flinging himself back in his chair, but Shippo adjusted his aim and caught him in the beam as well. The rest of the board members, including the chairman, scrambled to flee the massacre. I backed up a step and tossed a pair of empowered Thunder Jars. They cracked open against the dark plates of the power armor, releasing a deafening rumble that shattered the bank of windows, sending shards of glass in a hail down over simulated streets. Arcs of electricity clawed gleaming plates of Titan Steel, seeking purchase in the joints and the servos within, and though the suit barely moved I knew it couldn’t be pleasant for the little Therian inside.

>>

(Thunder Jar deals 1,300 Sonic/Electric Damage)

(Thunder Jar deals 700 Sonic/Electric Damage)

(Shippo is STAGGERED)

>>

I didn’t want to hurt Shippo, but the armor itself was virtually indestructible, so my best option was to try to incapacitate the driver. The Thunder Jars disrupted the missile barrage as well, giving Lawlimi the respite he needed to fire. It was a partial charge, a clear cloud of crystalline mana with a glowing green core, and it slammed into the power armor with enough force to rock it back within my webbing. It scuffed the plates, but hadn’t penetrated to Shippo at all. The Sword of Unlight lanced through a board member who had reached the edge of the disruption field, causing those behind him to hesitate and shy back into the room.

I downed a potion, one of my most powerful, and a yellow aura radiated from my skin.

>>

Taste of Eldritch Horror — Potion Celestial 3

Imbibing this brew suffuses you with the unnatural aura of an Old One, causing those who look upon you to suffer the effects of being exposed to alien geometries and concepts beyond their ability to comprehend. Your visage is a promise of the untold horrors that lurk in the furthest regions of unexplored space. This effect lasts for one minute.

>>

I could extend the duration with my Firewater endowment, but if this wasn’t over in the next minute, then we’d already lost. An effect like this dovetailed with my Glory ability, giving my allies a bonus to resist the effect and my enemies a penalty for the same. The power armor was too tough for us to crack it open, but the person inside was still only low Heroic, and unless being possessed by Orobos made him immune to Fear effects, he had no defense against a mental assault. The board members universally failed their saves, and one was so overcome by the effect that he leaped from the side of the building to escape it. That was actually a good move on his part, as getting out of the building also freed him from the disruption field. He might splatter on the pavement, but then he could log out without having his data corrupted.

>>

(PamyuPamyu is STAGGERED)

(Lawlimi resists FEAR)

(Shippo is PANICKED)

>>

The power suit always made noise, the hum of servos and the clunk of heavy mechanics, but the moment after Shippo was hit with the fear effect, the armor emitted what sounded like a fire alarm. Multicolored lights flashed just beneath the surface of its plating, the blinking diodes vaguely reminiscent of Christmas lights.

“What the crap is that?” PamyuPamyu was working her way around to the Hammer. She had resisted the Fear, but suffered from a partial effect that slowed her movement and restricted her actions. Lawlimi was charging for a full power blast, and with a Jewel of Vallorn strapped to his arm, he could reach levels of destruction that would strip the power armor’s plates right off its frame, but it still took him long seconds to get there. PamyuPamyu reached her hammer first and readied for a throw. Then the power armor exploded.

A couple of board members had made it out of the conference room, but the chairman and a few others were so paralyzed by fear that they were cowering under the table when it happened and suffered the full blast.

>>

(Shippo has died.)

(PamyuPamyu has died.)

(Lawlimi has died.)

(Self-Destruct Sequence deals 74,300 Fire and Disintegration Damage)

>>

The force of the explosion knocked me out of the field and into the hall. It was composed of a mix of flame and shades of Unlight like the sword. Anyone who was killed by it would be corrupted. My stacked fire resistance had managed to bring the damage I suffered down just below the level that would prove lethal, but everyone else was gone. In fact, the building itself was under tremendous strain, scoured down to its bare supports by the blast. I downed a healing potion as the ceiling moaned and started to sag. It was a quick jog to the elevator down the hall that would take me out of this instance and back to New Arda. If there had been stairs, I would have taken those, but this office building was like a pocket dimension, and there was only one way out. The doors dinged open just as chunks of the building started to come down, and I mashed the button to get me out before the whole structure collapsed.

I had survived the encounter, but everyone I could count on would now be subject to the demon’s influence. Almost the entire board of directors would have him in their heads, which meant the likelihood of any official action being taken against him was negligible. It was going to be me against Orobos, Orobos and basically the whole world. But I had the Book of Old Names, and maybe Hush’s and the other gods’ help. And my letter from the Maker had left me with one more potential tool.

>>

The Deck of Many Things — Celestial Quest 6

It is said that the Major Arcana, indeed, all the versions of Tarot that exist, are reflections of the one true Deck that is bound up with the fate of Mythopoeia. Scholars debate the reliability of these tales, and many claim that they are only myths promulgated to add a sense of grandeur to a silly game of chance. But this is a world of myths, and you know the truth. The True Deck is hidden within a temple in the far continent of Kenria. The Deck can only be summoned by someone with access to the Book of Old Names, but once it is found…

>>

My father had wanted me to play the game. So I would.