There was nothing I could do. Innumerable hands of players grabbed me, and yanked and dragged me to the altar. Their fingers clutched me so tight that the nails sank into my flesh. I was thrown onto the altar and held immobile face up.

I caught the sheen of a metallic cross. A stiletto with a long slender blade, ending in a needle-like point.

My eyes went wide in recognition. Who could the wielder be but the same player who had kidnapped Kiara before—Muckie! And egging him from behind was another player I identified—Zan, with his thin moustache, who had served as a guard to the elf king and had been among my first assailants after I came to Dharti.

My heart throbbed wildly inside my rib cage like a wild animal thrashing in its cage.

Muckie came closer, an evil smile dancing on his lips. In his elation he flashed his teeth and I imagined his canines bigger than they actually were. He was oozing hatred. He was far more evil than any of the monsters dwelling in the game world. A bit of realization floated to my mind: I was in contact with the biggest sacrifice stone—the altar.

“Is there anything I can sacrifice than can save me?” I asked the sacrifice stone in my mind. With a cruel hand Muckie tore off my shirt. He wanted to strike my bare chest.

No… But you can ask someone else to make a sacrifice in your stead. Someone that loves you.

But there was no such ‘someone’ left in the game world. The monsters had ceased to be my followers, or else they would have gladly given up their lives for my sake even without me asking. There was nobody.

Muckie lifted the dagger. He was gripping it tight.

“I don’t know, but if someone is there could you ask them?”

Hmmm… Alright… Let’s check. Yes, there is one person. I am asking them.

Muckie let out a victorious cry and brought down his weapon with savage force. First I heard my ribs crack like they were made of twigs. The pain I felt afterwards.

I tried to draw in breath but in vain. Blood spurted out of my chest. My consciousness began to fade, as life slowly seeped out my body. Barely, I recognized a blurry message in my vision.

Sacrifice Accepted.

A thick shroud of blackness settled over my eyes.

***

And then there was light.

Bright, all encompassing light. Everywhere.

I was among the clouds. Great masses of fluffy white cotton balls lazily moving. There was a pair of legs in front of me. The tops of the legs were glowing with light. I looked down and saw the ends of my thighs were radiant too. The legs were the same ones that I had seen in my dream. Mimti’s legs.

“Fix those legs with the ends of your thighs,” a familiar voice said from behind.

Without looking back, I did as told. The legs immediately merged with my thighs, smoothly becoming a part of me, the size and skin tone slightly altered in the process to perfectly fit me.

Only now I turned back, and wasn’t surprised to see the blue sage.

“So is this heaven?” I asked, gesturing at the clouds above and below. “I am dead. I receive the legs and get to stay in heaven. Good ending, but perhaps not what I was promised— or what I wanted. I wanted to go back to the real world.”

The sage laughed.

“This is just the imaginary heaven of the game world created by humans,” the sage said. He beamed an ancient smile of wisdom. “The true heaven you carry within yourself. Everyone does.”

“Why have I been given these legs?” I asked the sage. “I thought that I lost. The players killed me. The tower was lost.”

“They made a mistake,” the sage replied. “You can thank the player who ‘killed’ you for that. It was his idea that since the supreme level was the Level of Love, the players had to capture you using an illusion of the woman that you loved. He had seen her before and he was able to relay her appearance to the wizard who cast the illusion to trap you. All of that was a stark contrast to the intention with which Pook had created the supreme level of the Tower of Oddity.” The sage made a small laugh. “In actuality the players just had to not kill to win. All the other levels had being about killing. In the supreme level the players had to not fight with the monsters and they would have won. It was so obvious. Why else would the supreme level be called the ‘Level of Love’?”

“But isn’t that against the core principle of the game world?”

“It is not. Because the very act of not fighting in the ‘Level of Love’ was an act to win against the opponent. The players and the eviluns still remained opponents; no violation of the core principle. And it was for just one level in a quest, nothing permanent like the last time you tried to sign a peace treaty with the players.”

I remembered that. It had been a lame idea on my end, even though a well intended one. Things had spiraled out of control.

“So the players don’t get their old town back?” I asked the sage. “Since they couldn’t conquer the tower?”

“Well, they can go to the town as no one lives there anymore, but it would not be officially theirs,” the sage replied. “However, all those things are none of your concern now.”

“What did Pook get out of the quest?”

The sage’s antique face split into a grin.

“Reproduction.”

“Reproduction? So he got a wife or something?”

“No, he is dividing himself into two, even as we speak. Binary fission is the way to go for Oddities.”

And then I spotted something from the corner of my eyes. It was a human body lying some distance away in the hazy clouds. I approached it. It was easy to identify even without looking at the face. The pale and rotten skin bearing all kinds of wound marks told the tale— the zombie queen.

I looked at the sage for an answer.

“She loved you,” the sage said. “When the sacrifice stone asked her for the ultimate sacrifice, she gladly made it.”

“But…” My eyes filled up with tears, guilt tugging my heart strings, as I looked at Dieana’s still face. “I don’t want her dead. What will happen to the kids? Kanim and Tulip.”

The kids had been so adorable.

“Do not worry,” the sage said, “the zombie queen is… well, she is an undead. As such it is not possible for her to die again. She shall return to her people… in a while.”

That sounds better, I thought.

“But let it not be said that her love for you wasn’t pure,” the sage continued, “In fact, she didn’t think a second before making the ultimate sacrifice—to die in your stead. In fact, she didn’t herself know that there is no death for her. No zombie has ever died.”

Dieana looked very serene in her stillness. I hoped that she would have a nice life. I wiped my tears. Darn, she did love me truly after all.

“Die in your stead”, I repeated the words of the sage. “Does that mean… that I have not died? Can I still return to the real world? With legs?”

The sage looked at me blankly for a moment.

“Of course!” he said.

***