Apocalypse: Part 2

Whoa, shit! I whirled and saw a demon looking at me with a superior grin on her face. "Who are you? How did you penetrate the character creator?" The first answer I came to was that she was some demonic character in the game…but then I thought a bit more. No way the system interface used the same voice as an in-game character. She also didn't look…fake. Odd to say with someone so obviously inhuman, but she seemed very real. She couldn't be part of the programming. This was a common character creation. That meant no npcs. Also, she had no cursor at all. Something was very wrong.

"Interesting that you should ask, but your thoughts are much more interesting than your words." she giggled in a very sultry way, causing me to be uncomfortable in how it didn't arouse me at all. Something about her just felt too dangerous. Way too dangerous. "You are worth my time, after all. Good. I hate wasting time. My name is Ryne." That name was totally lame. And what other response was she expecting? Was I not supposed to be surprised at a random demonic npc showing up in the character creation? My thoughts? Was I supposed to think she was a game character? Looking like that? "And you should stop thinking of this world as a game. As of now, it isn't. Not for you, or anyone else." 

She didn't look like the normal game demon. She was hot. Most demons looked more like someone had tried to kill them as a baby. Or obviously a succubus, with random bits of bone armor to give a demonic tint to a human's body. Nobody could mistake Ryne for a human, but that didn't mean she was too obviously demonic either. Scratch that, she was more obviously demonic than any character I'd ever seen, but she pulled it off. Her skin was red, and so smooth it looked fake, but I could tell somehow that it wasn't. She also had black metal spikes all over the place. The bone that almost looked metallic stuck out of her head in six horns, like a crown, but also stuck out of her cheekbones. Overkill, much? Developers were better at keeping the overkill controlled. She just looked…right. As she talked, her lower jaw split in two, showing rows of black steel teeth. She had black hair that reached the middle of her back, based on the fact that I could see a few locks that went to the middle of her stomach. She also had a tail that ended in a mace of black metal spikes swinging lazily behind her. The bone blades that ripped out of her joints looked totally lethal. Her hands ended in six-inch-long black talons that looked more deadly than any knife I'd seen in the game. Her wings were upside down, but they looked more like giant webbed hands than wings. Her feet ended in black steel hooves, but I managed to think that was hot, too. If something I was absolutely sure could crush my head into paste could be called hot. But it was, somehow. And she was naked. Probably helped a lot in regard to making her deadly body attractive. No way the developers got away with a Teen rating when there was an explicitly nude demon in the character creation. And the detail was amazing. Better than any of the cheap porn I'd managed to get my hands on despite the parental controls on my VRI. 

She rolled her body tantalizingly, then I remembered she responded to my thoughts. Well, it wasn't like I'd been insulting her. Couldn't blame her for preening as she was complimented, though I felt a spike of dread as the thought was completed. Of course she wasn't so vain as to preen, that wouldn't befit her gloriously violent image at all. I definitely needed to focus more on the deadly black bits than the succulent red ones, though. "I decided that this realm needed a sovereign force, so I helped it along. A bit. The real point was to build a meeting place between realms, but I'll get to that later, if you prove worthy. I'm only talking to you because you figured out the flaw I added to the creation menu. You're the first. So…questions for the savior of this world?"

"You realize you're making absolutely no sense, right?" she nodded. And I thought she was smiling, though it was hard to tell with her jaw split. She was definitely showing off her teeth. Were demons like animals and teeth showing meant they were mad? "So, you're a demon?" she nodded again. "A real one, not the game kind." She nodded, closing her lower jaw and smiling like a human. Did that mean she was actually happy or was she just trying to put me at ease? Her face looked almost human when she did that. If her teeth weren't tiny black razors. And her lips weren't the color of fresh blood. And she didn't have a predatory look in her eyes that made me wonder if she was going to talk to me or eat me. Apart from those little factors, her smile was perfectly normal. Maybe I was getting too used to the threat of death that her whole body oozed. "What did you do to the game, exactly?"

"I made it real. First, I hacked the VRI programming so it would kill you as soon as you entered the game. That was the best part. Now you're stuck in this realm until you figure out how to break free of the gaming universe within the new half-realm and take that fateful step back to your old reality. Or Hell. Whichever floats your boat. Before that, though, you'll have to defeat the game. Or die. It is now a weaning program. You know the drill, typical death game. There is no longer a respawn contingency. When your character dies, so does your soul. It's still the same game, basically, it just isn't play anymore. Like war, the best game ever invented. Do it right, and you can rule an entire world with god-like omnipotence. Do it wrong and you die. And go to Hell. Since I was the one to help the realm gain sovereignty it's now a half-step to Hell instead of a half-step to anywhere." She was still grinning at me. She'd just told me that I was doomed to die and go to Hell whether I lived a good life or not, and she was grinning! She must be telling the truth. "So, have fun with it. Do what you want, because it won't change your ultimate destiny. If you make yourself as close to invincible as you can get in the game, I'll explain what I mean when I talk about sovereignty and Hell. Enjoy the game. A small tip, since you've been such a good sport about all of this, the world has changed since the beta." So changing it to make it into a different version of reality wasn't enough for her, she had to make it different from WWO too. Great. Why'd she have to choose this game? Probably because it had the largest anticipated launch population of any game in history. With her little "launch bonus" announcement, she'd probably doubled the number that joined the launch population. Maybe even more, depending on how many could afford a VRI or get one overnight after the announcement. 

Ryne's voice was still the voice of the system. It was better, though, without her standing right in front of me. "The world is split into three empires, though political turmoil is starting to divide the alliances that hold them together." Three? When had that happened? "The Alliance of Races was formed when they realized that Heaven and Hell were not separate dimensions with only one gate apiece, but a floating world and a world deeper underground than any hole. All the races united to fight the war that the monstrous beings of both worlds waged against the middle world. With the end of the war failing to come no matter how many battles are fought, the races are beginning to pull back into their own empires. Each race continues to claim sovereignty over themselves, but the Alliance maintains their hold of the seven largest cities, where they have decreed that all races are welcome. Please choose your starting city." Dark Elves could start somewhere other than Zezhria? What did I care about other cities? I had enough money to buy Zezhria and the crown of the Dark Elves. I would become king, especially if this wasn't a game. It was always better to be on top. "Please choose your starting city."

I'd forgotten that I needed to speak the name of the starting city. Ryne really messed with my whole plan of how this was going to go. "Zezhria." I expected to become a meteor again. Nope. It wasn't a game anymore, so it was probably more appropriate. I watched as a Dark Elf gave birth to a baby. Again, much more explicit than the rating prepared you for. Real life. I was being born to this world. I hoped I would live a less painful existence in this world than the one I'd just died in. That still hadn't sunk in yet, or I was in denial. I didn't want to admit that my old body was dead. Or maybe I just didn't care. Not like I'd loved my old body all that much. I was leaning toward the shock factor, though. People should care when they die. I wasn't that strange. Shock must be numbing me. And I definitely shouldn't be even more excited now than I was before I met Ryne. That wouldn't make sense.

"So you are born. You cannot respawn in this game, so the character is you. Don't die. Or die to see if I'm bluffing." Somehow her playfully horrifying manner managed to be communicated with just her voice. Or maybe I was just primed to hear her that way. This was just a recording, such nuanced impressions didn't come across in recordings. 

To prove it, I remembered it as the voice that ended the beta. She'd been the sexy voice the told everyone there was a launch bonus and let people in for free. No horror then. But maybe that was on purpose. It made sense, in a dark and twisted way. All the sexy when you're trying to convince people to do things, now that I was already in she could let loose and stop acting cute.

"If you do, you will find yourself in a world of hurt." That was one way to describe Hell. "Your real body has already been executed, so this life is the only one you've got. Waste it if you want." Something was starting to dawn on me. I wasn't in my body anymore. I was watching my new body become me. Nathan Turner was dead. Truly dead. Void was growing into a person.

The baby grew to a toddler in seconds. I watched his life as if it was in fast forward as he ran around playing with other kids. I watched as the parents died, crushed by a meteor. I watched as the kid became violent. My young body got in a fight that ended when the other kid drew a knife and almost cut my face off. And as he purposefully added two more cuts just for flair. I watched as the wound slowly healed. When the scar was finally a paler shade of ebony, I saw my character dye it red, grinning at how scary he looked now. Then I watched as he walked into the forest. He got hit by lightning and I went from third-person to first-person.

No time to waste. Talking to Ryne had slowed me down in comparison to anyone else as obsessed as I was. I sprinted back toward the city. I needed to buy everything before anyone else noticed that their money was still there. There were so many people milling around in the same area that I knew there had to be some that noticed their gold was all still there. I couldn't be the only one to feel my gold rather than needing to use the interface.

I was surprised to notice a few differences despite my sprint. I could smell and feel the world. The pull of muscle, the resistance of air on my skin, it was all so real. It was crisp, not chilly. Not uncomfortable, but not the kind of weather you wanted to fall asleep in either. And it smelled…like nature should. A bit damp, with an undertone of mold to the woodsy smell, but definitely natural. I'd never smelled anything so pure. No smells of fuel or trash. No markers of industry at all. Smelling and feeling were two things that virtual reality didn't do. 

I ran into a tree and noticed pain. Not even close to as much pain as when I actually ran into something, but it was still painful. That was another new one. It really was different from a game. I was actually in the woods surrounding Zezhria. As I felt the tree, I realized that the detail of the world had gone up exponentially. It looked completely real. There was even an ant moving up the trunk and damage to the bark where I'd just smashed into it. I shook my head as I tried to ignore how short my breath was. How cold the air in my lungs felt. I was not used to running like a jock. I ran in WWO before, but that was more like telling someone to run and watching through their eyes. It didn't feel like running. Running felt exactly the same in this world as it had in the real one, the feeling of muscles tightening and releasing on my command was beautiful. If I hadn't already believed it was real, that alone would have convinced me. It didn't hurt that I was running way faster than I ever could have as Nathan. Every tightening of a muscle felt powerful, unlike how it felt as a human.

My muscles were burning by the time I panted my way into Zezhria. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't in the real world anymore. Stamina was a stat, not a physical state of being. I'd slowed down to a jog several times before resuming my sprint. I could run out of stamina, but it would refill like mp. I even had to pull up the interface to look at it, realizing that I was a horrible wimp before. I was feeling absolutely exhausted, but my stamina was barely a quarter used up. And regenerating quickly as I panted outside the gates. Eventually, running wouldn't produce any exhaustion at all. I didn't see any other players, or maybe there weren't cursors anymore. I looked at one npc and noticed that it had a yellow cursor that was just an upside down pyramid. So it didn't have a class, which would make the cursor change into their class sigil. As I concentrated on it I realized that it had a health-bar. And a name.

Forget the npcs! I needed to be king! I resumed my sprint all the way to the bank. It felt like it on the way to the city, but running from the gate to the bank convinced me that Zezhria was way bigger than it used to be. Way bigger. Even the scale of the buildings was different. The bank used to look like a squat dwarf among elves, now it seemed like a troll among gods.

It was set up like a bank in the real world. The outside was a perfect cube of gray cement. The inside was a giant circle with eight doors, not including the exit, each with a utilitarian plaque on the door. The tile of the floor was pure black, as were the walls. The outside might not reflect Zezhria at all, but the interior was specific to this bank. I searched for the real estate room for a second before finding it. The door opened to reveal an amazingly fat Dark Elf woman sitting behind a large wooden desk. There didn't seem to be room for her to move out from behind the desk. As I looked closer, I realized that the desk was fitted into the walls. Nobody could move around it. The bank was the only building that functioned like a modern system. The rest was feudal. "I'd like to buy Zezhria and the crown of the Dark Elves."

"Buying a city requires a guild bank account. Buying a crown requires you to have formed the guild. Would you like to form a guild? The cost is ten thousand gold." I nodded hurriedly. I wasn't about to lose out to someone else that entered an earlier instance of the bank. "What would you like to name it?" she didn't sound as mechanical as most npcs had in the beta. She sounded really bored. Similar, but very different. She was also as detailed as if she was a real person. I could even see the fat jiggling in her face as her head moved. Was that what happened when a game became real? Would an 8bit game look realistic if you were inside it?

Focus! Guild names! I sucked at names. My name was Void, though. Maybe something related to that. "Black Hole Knights." Oof. Oh, well. Like it or not, I was now the premier knight of an all-consuming gravity well. Definitely could be worse.

She glanced up at me, her eyes almost out of focus. She was definitely bored. Already. The game had just started! Bank employees never left the bank unless someone brought them out for a specific transaction, so maybe they were different. From the size of her desk, and the fact that I seriously doubted she was physically capable of climbing over it, I'd say she never left this room. "You require a sigil. You may draw one, or choose one of these." She tossed a book onto the desk in front of her. I sucked at drawing. I glanced through the book and found a simple skull. I made the skull black with a red glow and added my scar to the left side, coloring it red. I may be in a rush, but that didn't mean I would be sloppy. Apart from the name. That didn't count because I was bad at names. Now it would be easier to identify it as my guild. If they knew what I looked like. It was weird, I'd never felt the scar's resistance to smiling before I pushed my new sigil to her. I'd only ever created one guild before, so the details were foggy to me. "Entrance into my guild requires me or an authorized member to give them a sigil item. I'd like a thousand of them, please." She nodded and I felt twenty thousand gold leave my account. Ten apiece, that wasn't bad. "Can I buy my crown, now? Please?"

"The cost of both Zezhria and the crown of the Dark Elf Emperor will be four hundred fifty trillion gold. Four hundred trillion for the crown and fifty trillion for Zezhria. Would you still like to proceed? Please note that the price for Zezhria will be deducted from your guild account every month. Should you lose the city and retain the crown there will be rebellions." I nodded. Damn. The loss of that much gold actually felt like I was getting a full body wax in an instant. I couldn't help the squawk of pain. "Zezhria now belongs to the Black Hole Knights. The crown of the Dark Elf Emperor belongs to Void." And I got items. I felt it as a bunch of gear landed in my inventory. They were heavy. I checked real fast and saw that I'd gotten a full set of gear! And a full complement of weapons! I'd check those out later. "Would you like to purchase anything else?"

Sure. I still had one hundred twenty three trillion. I relaxed into the plush seat as I considered my options. "I'll buy every building in Zezhria and immediately rent them out at whatever the current rates are. All deeds to be given to the Black Hole Knights, and all income given to the guild account." I'd get money for myself by killing stuff. And whatever was left off after I bought every building in Zezhria. Having a strong source of income for the guild would be important.

"The combined cost of your purchase is one hundred trillion two billion nine hundred twenty six million four hundred eighty seven thousand one hundred twenty one gold. Would you like to proceed?" That was quite a bit more than I'd expected. Probably reasonable for what I was buying, but still.

"How did it get the hundred trillion?" that was the biggest part. The rest seemed like random numbers piled on top of each other, except the trillions. "And the two billion?"

"The hundred trillion is an addition of the eighty trillion required to buy the Temple of Zezhria and the twenty trillion to buy the Keep of Zezhria, which would have been more expensive had you not already purchased the city deed. The two billion is for the Bank of Zezhria." She still hadn't changed from her bored expression. You'd think someone buying a crown would cause a stir. "Would you like to proceed with the purchase?" I nodded and winced as I lost another hundred trillion. I was down to twenty three trillion. "There is no other real estate in Zezhria for you to buy." I nodded and left before she could ask if I wanted to sell anything.

I was poor. Comparatively. But I owned the city. All of it. And I had items. I shifted to my backpack and opened the menu. I gaped at the items. Crown of the Dark Elf Emperor, level two hundred fifty, mythic quality. There were so many buffs and bonuses that I didn't even bother reading them all. Feeling through all of that individually would be an absolute nightmare. Items went from broken to common, uncommon, rare, super rare, ultra rare, legendary, and unique before becoming mythic quality. It could be the best helmet in the game! I opened a preview panel, just to see if it looked as badass as it actually was. The helm looked like the city, only smaller. A dozen little spires in a circle around a single spire at the center over a rigid helmet that left the face mostly obscured in the Corinthian style if not for the black smoke seeping out to obscure everything except two blazing red eyes. Anything over legendary didn't change no matter who equipped it, so it would cause a stir if I ever wore the armor, but damn! It was amazing! No wonder the crown had cost so much! No, it was probably cheaper than buying this gear alone on the open market! Way cheaper! If the game hadn't been hacked it would have been really hard to get the qualifications, though. Definitely not something you could afford too early. Bidding would also probably make the city way more expensive as multiple guilds bought it from each other before one could afford the crown as well.

I scrolled down to the next item I'd gotten. Pauldrons of the Dark Elf Emperor, level two hundred fifty, mythic quality. Bracers of the Dark Elf Emperor were just as good as the others. All of the items were amazing. Gauntlets, cape, breastplate, belt, breeches, greaves, and shield were all included. And there was even a pair of swords, a staff, a pair of daggers, a spear, a bow, and a two handed sword to match. All level two hundred fifty mythic gear. It was so powerful that I'd never be able to wear it in the open. Not since I'd gone to such lengths to make it possible for people not to know that I owned the city. It would all go to waste if I started parading around in gear that nobody should have access to for another year. Maybe decade. I wanted the crown of every race, just so I could have the armor. It was definitely worth the cost.

I stepped out of the bank and saw that the lighting had changed. I looked up and saw a giant, translucent, glowing skull rotating above the spire of the temple. It bathed the whole city in crimson light, completely blocking out the light of the sun. It was my guild sigil, complete with black bone and red scar. It had a golden crown too, though, floating over the sigil. Maybe because I owned the crown? So much for being subtle. Guess it made sense. "King" was hardly a subtle title.

"I knew it. I saw your scar on a skull that went up over the city like a beacon, so I figured it had to be you. Since it's your super-special distinguishing feature, I figured you'd make it the distinguishing feature of your guild as well." The cursor over the head of the speaker was a black wisp of smoke. A Shadow. Walking openly. The name under it was Lethe. Wait, Lethe? I recognized that name. But…she didn't look anything like she had. Her skin was as dark as mine, her hair matched it in inky darkness. She'd also fixed the princess cut, now it was in a spiky cut that barely touched her shoulders. She also had black talon earrings in each ear. Her eyes were red. It was a very good look, especially for a Shadow. All blacked out with glowing red eyes. "I should have made more money in the beta. You bought a fucking city. Here I am with barely enough to afford your cheater set. If there were people willing to sell the potions, anyway."

"Your money didn't reset? Mine did." Hell's character was exactly the same as it had been. He was as brutish-looking as a Dark Elf could be. He even added a heavy burn scar over half of his face that removed the skin to show the black muscle and the white bone of his skull in places. Still a Warlord. Fairly rare class for an elf. That's what Hell liked, though, so I couldn't judge. I'd been an elf for the last four of my melee characters. And I was currently all of the melee classes while being an elf.

"Must have been the special bonus for being there at the last second while owning the full game as well." that was the only option that made sense, really. I would have thought Ryne was playing favorites again, but Lethe had her gold so that wasn't likely. Unless she also attracted Ryne's attention for some reason. "Did you have the full game, Lethe?"

"Yeah. Who's the brute? Hellspawn69? And where'd the rest of your username go, Voidslayer numbers?" Lethe tossed her head as she glared at Hell. Aggressive much? "And why do you think that's the reason?"

"Void knows everything, and just call me Hell. I tried to shorten it, but it wouldn't accept. Probably because Hell is a place here. Weird, man. You started a guild, though! Care if I join?" I grinned as I handed a sigil to each of them. The image flashed into the list of information I got when I concentrated on Hell's demon-head cursor that identified him as a Warlord. The cursors were weird in this game. I concentrated on the class sigil, colored to show his moral alignment, and my head was filled with information. I got his name, hp, mp, and stamina levels as well as his level, class, and guild. "Speaking of which, what's your class? The cursor information shows a black line where the written out version of the class usually is. What does a black ball mean?"

So it had all of the class cursors at once, which all fit into a ball. All thirty six of them shoved into the same space turned out as a black ball or line. Good to know. I shrugged and grinned at him. "I found a new class. It's fucking awesome!" that was true. Ultimate class. God class. Or maybe it was Devil class since Ryne was in charge. Hail Satan, and all that stuff. But Ryne wasn't one of the regular demon names. Was the real Hell ruled over by Satan? Who even was the god of my eventual afterlife now? Maybe Ryne would tell me next time.

Still, I'd done good work. Twenty minutes into the game and I owned a city and had two guild members. Quite impressive, really. "I was not expecting you to figure it out so fast!" I squealed and nearly soiled myself. I whirled to see Ryne standing behind me. Lethe vanished and Hell drew his beginner bastard sword. "You really are good. Or just really rich, one of the two. Put that away." She waved and Hell was blasted into a wall so hard he crunched. His health went down to one point. She'd broken every bone in his body! "I don't like people trying to hide from me." She stared hard at a space of wall until Lethe appeared, eyes downcast. She was terrified. She wasn't the only one. Ryne had almost killed Hell. For good. "Keep your panties on, princess. Since you own the temple your guild can respawn there. Since you're the king you respawn in the royal suit of the keep, but you would have ended there anyway because you own it. The only way to kill you and your guild rats is to kill you at your respawn point. Or completely level Zezhria. Neither are likely since all of your stats are multiplied by a thousand in affiliated respawn buildings when you own crown gear. Basically, you're unkillable. By accident, unfortunately, but I didn't word my promise very well. So, did my interesting little prince want to know how this world was created?"

I nodded, but looked around. "I'm sure this isn't supposed to be common knowledge, did you want to talk somewhere private?" she sniggered and a circle burned itself into the ground around us. The word silence echoed through my mind. "So nobody can hear us outside of the circle?" she nodded. Right, she wanted questions about the game. "So, how did you do it?"

"The digital world works as a half-step between realms, you'd call them dimensions. The souls of the dead have immense power, creating a tiny portion of reality as they dissipate. Over time, those dissipating souls created realms. One is Hell, where the souls are no longer destroyed but used as infinite batteries. Instead of annihilation they are trapped as Hell slowly draws out their power at the same rate as they produce it, making the souls of the dead into everlasting batteries, so to speak. The servers are technically located in the human realm, but it is a technicality. There is a separation between reality and the internet. It's energy based, so I could widen the gap and make it into a realm. It just needed a little soul power to give it the final kick in the right direction. All I had to do was simply use a link I created in Hell to my own power and beat the server in the head with it. Added to the combined death of a ton of teenagers, it was enough to wake up. Enough to separate from the reality you remember, at least." She giggled and her eyes flashed a blazing red that made me want to cover my face. The heat in her gaze was terrifying and gorgeous at the same time, just like the rest of her.

Death of a ton of teenagers, though. So there was a price after all. One that let her flex her supreme power over me, even as I'd attained "immortality" or as close as she thought I could get in this world between worlds. But the elation I'd felt since she met me the first time was just getting stronger. I was now sure that I wasn't in shock. Or if I was it was keeping happiness in check instead of horror. I wasn't horrified that my body was dead, I was glorified in that I wasn't. I was truly freed from my fleshy weakness! Absolutely free! In a whole different world! Everyone else got transported into a video game. I was freed from my mortal shell, becoming a ghost in the machine. This is no game, it is my new reality and I intend to see everyone else recognize that fact. They will bow to King Void!

I wasn't positive, but I thought I could see a twinkle in Ryne's eyes as she continued. "This is causing an unreal level of panic in the real world. They can't shut the servers down, since it now runs on the energy of the souls trapped within. They've completely destroyed the computers, but that isn't even close to good enough. The physical servers may be down, but the connection is impossible to separate from the internet. It works a bit like Hell, feeding off of the souls, but different too. Hell uses emotion to draw out the energy, torment to be specific, while this realm uses the destruction of the consciousness to feed directly on the soul. That's what happens when you kill something. Or die without a keep or temple to put your consciousness back. I killed a hundred thousand or so of the players so I could give the npcs and monsters partial souls as well as the five million or so it took to kick this reality away from the original. I have to say, making those monsters was a total pain in my ass. Building them off of the tiny ideas the developers had in their servers was so annoying." She giggled conspiratorially, and I couldn't help but shift my vision from black to red. 

Her eyes shifted to look around at all the npcs as her giggle grated on my nerves. Giggle didn't describe the sound well enough, despite the action of her body matching quite well. It was more like a knife sliding in and out of its sheath than a laugh. It assured me that she would feel no remorse if the time came when she felt like killing me. She probably wouldn't even need to kill me to end my life. She'd do it for fun. 

She leaned in and whispered like she hadn't soundproofed the conversation. That angle was making looking at the black really hard, and another possible twinkle in her eyes would make me believe she knew it. "Now, the whole game is a realm. When you have babies you create souls that feed the game when they die. If they die. Unlike your reality, in this realm you're immortal. But you can only have three kids. Works that way for every 'hero' type player. Npcs are immortal too, depending on race, but they can have as many kids as they want. They require less soul energy, and they produce more than they use, so it doesn't mind. It loves npcs. Monsters are a pain, though. They don't kill each other enough to equalize their energy quota. That's how I convinced it that heroes were a good idea, they kill lots of monsters."

"It? What it would mind?" she was talking like the server was alive. She hadn't done that…had she? Who was this demon girl? Could she just grant sentience to things? Would my armor come alive if it entertained her enough in that moment?

Her grin closed and she looked at me with disfavor. "The server. It doesn't have a sex or a name yet, so it is an it. Don't worry. It will decide what and who it is in time. It's still young. Any more questions?" I'd pissed her off somehow. Had she expected me to grasp that the server was alive just like that? She had very high standards. Or was she irritated at my thought of my armor gaining sentience? It was an entirely reasonable fear!

"How does your power work?" that was one question that was very important to me. She'd almost killed Hell with one casual attack, one that I didn't even know how to do with all of my wizard experience. It had looked too offhand to be a spell. Instinctual telekinesis wasn't an ability any class or species had. That I knew of.

"I gave myself the stats I wanted. I'm like you will be when you reach level five hundred. More or less." Five hundred? The level cap was two fifty! "If you unlock every aspect of the game that can be unlocked." So there was a way to avoid the level cap? Some special requirements? Good to know.

"The level cap is two hundred fifty. How can you be level five hundred?" maybe she'd give me more information. She smiled at me appreciatively. It was like I'd passed a test she hadn't expected me to. I was just happy she was over being mad at me so fast. I seriously didn't understand what she was using as a metric for impressive, though. How had my question been surprising? "And why are you constantly laughing at me?" new god or not, that was irritating.

She sniggered at me, as if to answer my question with an example. A benevolent but irritating new god. "Once you own every crown, you control the levels of your subjects. Up to level five hundred. The npc level cap is one fifty. The monster level cap is two hundred. The player level cap is two fifty. The uber-monster level cap is four hundred. All of that can be changed. Like I said, you're closer to a god when you buy the crown than a king. As for your other question…you're just too easy to laugh at." She sniggered again as she vanished into a puff of smoke. The arcane circle we'd been standing in was gone too. "One last thing you might never figure out on your own, you can train any original player all thirty six classes. Kids work different. They can only learn the classes of their parent." Parent? Didn't children have two parents?

"Who was the sexy femme fatale?" Hell asked as he punched me in the shoulder. "Damn, dude. Punching you is like punching a brick wall." So I was already the equivalent of a level thirty six? No, there was a difference between being a level one times thirty six and a level thirty six. I was probably closer to a level six in power. If that. Impressive, but far from immortal. Even wearing my new armor with the buff in my respawn point wouldn't save me from an actual character at level one hundred. Npcs could definitely assassinate me.

"My new divine patron, apparently." I'd forgotten to ask her if Satan ruled Hell, so Hail Ryne. At least until anyone else showed up anywhere near her level. She'd talked to me, and she was the one who'd made the world. That made her a goddess and me her favorite. For the time being. Wouldn't put it past her to turn on a dime, so I couldn't over do it with the Hail Rynes. Maybe I'd start praying every day like some of those weird churchy people. "Let's go hunting. We need to stay on top in this game. It's not a game we can afford to progress slowly in. Even if all the other players are jokes, the npcs could be up to anything." I glanced around at the npcs. Maybe they had quests for us. That was a fairly fast way to gain experience in any game. Quests were always good. I jogged to the first one. Her cursor was a green pyramid. Would they learn classes eventually, or did it require a player to teach the classes to them? "Hello…citizen."