After that discussion, I took a tour over the facilities on the factory floor, and then out into the rest of the crater. The wall indeed had been repaired to quite a significant degree, honestly it looked better than it had before the fight. Plans for further expansions filed into the back of my mind. It would give me something to do while I recovered enough to be able to use the Research Lab properly.

I would also need to build a vehicle for my plans, and I would need to put together a team to head out, one that would leave the factory with enough people to see to its defense in the absence of Jen, Artemis, and myself. Fortunately, the new recruits seemed like they were being incorporated well, and most of them were ranged attackers, which would make them ideal with defending from the walls with the aid of the autorifles.

Food development was coming along well. A trip to the western expansion showed the chicken coop thriving, with a whole mess of chickens pecking at grains, while the [Rancher] looked on with pride. I would also need to see what I could do about getting a “region” under coverage from erg condensers; the battle had convinced me of the necessity of a pharmacy.

My thoughts were interupted when a series of system messages flashed before me.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Isolde Straum is the first player to reach level 50! As a reward, she will receive a bonus to upgrading or merging her paths. The next 9,999 players to reach level 50 will receive that same bonus!

Good hunting!

The first ascension is perhaps the most important, but it is rarely the most powerful. If you can survive to 100, there’ll be another one waiting for you there. Be careful. Be safe. Stay alive. Things are about to get worse.

ANNOUNCEMENT

N/A

Your world will bleed, as ours have. The memories of your pasts will be stolen. The pain of your birth into existence will be rendered as a cosmic drama, then a cosmic tragedy. The doom comes stalking from the mists. Look to the stars and see all the dimmed lights of dead worlds. You will join us.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Congratulations on completing the first phase of the Great Game! The second phase has begun! You might see some familiar imagery invoked with some of the new enemies you will face. Do not worry, this is intentional. Tier 2 raw materials will begin spawning!

The game continues. The third phase is coming.

They bear the faces of our killers, they shout the slogans of those that have dragged us through the mud for generations. They are the worst of us reflected in the worst of it.

I’m going to kill them all.

I swayed for a moment under the sudden intrusion, but after reading them all, looked over to Seren. “We need to talk to the librarian.”

“Full meeting?” At my nod, they sent out a message through the announcement channel, and we all hurried up to the library.

Practically everyone was waiting for us when we arrived, with only a handful trickling in after us. The new recruits, the kids, Jen and Artemis, everyone had arrived for the meeting. The librarian paced nervously in his alcove at the center of the library.

“I take it you saw the messages?” I asked as I took a seat towards the front.

The librarian nodded and his gaze went distant for a moment. “Yes. Yes. I’m not sure if I was supposed to see them, but see them I did.” He took a seat as well, but clearly was bleeding off nervous energy. “No, I don’t know what that N/A message was about. The closest we’ve been able to tell is that someone forced an empty announcement message into the queue in a previous iteration, purely to convey that note. No idea why they would do that, though.”

The rest of the room mirrored the librarian’s nervousness. We had no idea what was coming, and the only person who did was a wreck. It did not bode well.

“So, the big details,” the librarian started softly. “So far, the monsters you’ve fought have been altered versions of native animals. In some cases radically altered, and absolutely strengthened by the erg and by the system, but still just animals, and altered rather than created.

“We’re going to start seeing entirely fabricated beings now. Entities drawn from myths and legends of this planet, albeit altered to fit the mold of the system. Fortunately, these mythic beasts will be largely located in dungeons, though the number of dungeons will begin to steadily increase.” The librarian took a moment to clean his glasses. “You’re going to want to work on clearing dungeons as much as you can, if only to prep for phase three.

“And no, I can’t talk about phase three, not yet at least.” The librarian sighed and settled back in his chair, gently gripping the arm rests. “Jen, you’ll especially want to seek out dungeons. Vestiges are very often used as the core, the grit around which the pearl forms.”

“I will spend some time working on a dungeon finder,” I said. “It should be doable with the skills I have, though I might need to pick up some perks to complete the design.”

Ty spoke up from near the back of the room. “What do you mean by mythic beasts? Are you talking, like, dragons?”

“I don’t know what a dragon is.” A faint smirk played over the librarian’s expression. “For whatever reason, I don’t have access to the Legends and Literature database, and that’s what the system is going to be pulling from. If your peoples have stories of these ‘dragons’ as terrifying beasts with high levels of destructive power, then certainly they’ll be included.”

More questions emerged, naming specific creatures that the librarian couldn’t speak to. Eventually he lifted a hand to bring silence to the room. “Pretty much the only thing that you shouldn’t expect as a mythic beast is anything as smart as a human. The only sapient minds that you’ll find in the dungeons are the vestiges.”

“That implies,” I said, “that we’ll be running into sapient monsters elsewhere.”

“Yes,” the librarian let out a heavy sigh. “They’re going to be trouble, because they’ll be active out in the world.” The librarian slowly scanned over the faces present before standing, beginning a slow pace. “The truth is, that the system will have plumbed your history for the worst monsters in it, the worst human monsters that is, and will use their iconography and ideology as a basis for groups of near-human monsters.

“The high level of inter-human conflict that occurred here will serve as a detriment for the spawning here. These sapient foes exist more as a goad to force players to work on their tactics for fighting each other, and since we have proven our ability there, that part of the test will be deferred.”

“But they’ll be a present threat elsewhere,” I said. I frowned as I shifted in my seat, thinking to other places, to the other dots on the map. “I wonder how many places we’ll be dealing with that escalation.”

“It’s bad news either way. Either the communities have been killing each other, or they’ll be facing the monsters,” the librarian said. “And these new tiers are no joke. I highly recommend doing everything you can to tier up your equipment before going into battle.”

With this new update, the group set to work on developing new plans, new training schedules, new exploration cycles, new gear to be made, new materials to discover. Even according to our most generous estimates, it’d be a week before anyone would be able to properly depart. Fortunately, this would provide time to focus on skill development, and for me to slowly rebuild my shattered erg channels.

The discussion dwindled as we worked through the immediate steps that needed to be done, and the group split up to get to their individual work. As we did so, the librarian called at me to stay, and so I returned to my seat at the front of the library, with Seren joining me at my side. The librarian gave them a brief glance before turning their attention fully onto me.

“I have gained some permissions in what I can tell you about,” he said. “But some of what can be told is a bit on the disturbing side. Undue spread of these details could lead to an undesirable mass panic.”

“It’s fine,” I said. I shot Seren a brief smile and took a hold of their hand, giving a squeeze. “I’ve come to trust Seren very deeply. Before we get into that, though, can you tell me what constitutes a region?”

“Ah, your most recent quest?” At my nod, the librarian continued. “If you are able to establish a network of condensers up to that town that Chad had used as a central base, then that should be sufficient to qualify.”

After a moment of quiet, the librarian finally spoke again, in a far meeker tone than I was used to. “Look up [The Ends] in the help system.”

I frowned, then did so.

HELP - THE ENDS

The means by which the game could come to a close.

Victory

Defeat

Instead of a traditional system note at the end, a hologram appeared, as when I had looked up The Chosen way in the beginning. Here, though, there were many people, many faces, all looking up to a central speaker who had some sort of digital white board at the ready. The speaker was entirely featureless, a blank face, and glowed with an amber light that suffused their non-skin. They were dressed in a similar manner to the librarian, but spoke with a far more authoritative and rough tone.

“Thank to the work of those whose presences I have stored here, we have managed to delve deep into the history of the System, of the Great Game, and the iterations that predate us. I leave this record here, in the hope that it might bring you salvation.”

The speaker tapped the white board and it switched to a display, showing an eagle eye view of a massive fortress, being swarmed by thousands of monsters. Most were quadrupeds of various sizes, but there were fliers mixed in with the number and massive lumbering bipeds slowly ranging in closer.

“This is what we believe to be the intended fail state of the Great Game. If the client species is unable to keep up with the rate of increasing power of the monsters generated by the system, then they will fall in battle. From everything our research has determined, this is only the end of ten percent of all iterations. Certainly something to be avoided, but I’m sure you have ideas already of how to do so.”

The speaker tapped the screen and it switched displays to show a lone swordsman, gasping for air, standing in front of one of those giants from the previous display, but surrounded by dead and withered vegetation, emaciated beasts and people alike. The world displayed was almost grey, and the grass turned to dust underfoot.

“The other, far more common, ending is this. The System continues to ramp up its power, but pulls more and more on the atmospheric erg in order to power its creations. It drains the world dead of energy, and in doing so, starves the blood of all living things.

“In its greed for ever increasing growth, the System chokes all life from the world.”