Things had been interesting these last few days. After the battle for the Citadel, the World of Mundus and the forum had been on fire. Literally, when it came to Mundus. From what I could tell, looking at the widely varying accounts and videos, the Nidhögg had successfully been resurrected, even if some angry deity had burned my Avatar from the face of Mundus in retaliation, locking me out of my account. After their resurrection, the Nidhögg had taken the incredibly cool body I had crafted for them and had begun to do what an apocalyptic dragon does best. Destroy the World, building on the events we had set in motion together.

Amusingly, the Forum had been in almost as much chaos as the World of Mundus and that without an apocalyptic dragon wreaking havoc. No, the chaos there came from the various players, all having their own opinion on what I had done, how I had done it and whether or not Pantheon Entertainment had their fingers in play. I had given a brief statement, but nothing more, returning to lurking and watching the fun, and somehow, that statement hadn’t helped matters. If anything, I might have made matters worse but on the Internet, you could never know. Silence could be taken as anything from violence to a tacit admission of complicity to a silent refusal or anything. Similarly, negative statements could be interpreted as denial to avoid responsibility, or as deception or, again, anything that the reader wanted to read into your statement. People had their opinions and more often than not, something as insignificant as statements of fact had no power to influence those.

To make matters worse, Pantheon had switched to complete radio silence, not even moderating their forum beyond what appeared to be an automatic and relatively crude filter that stopped the worst curses and insults. There might be a good reason for it, but I couldn’t fathom it. So close to the release of their ground-breaking product, community management should be one of their priorities, not some afterthought that could be ignored. But what did I know, there might be some strange outrage strategy behind it, the smoke from the burning dumpster that their forum had become attracting attention to their product.

Instead of letting myself get embroiled in shouting at strangers on the Internet, I spent a large amount of time at the gym with Mrs Wu.

Amusingly, after I had previously asked Mrs Wu for extra training, she had somehow decided that I was about to embark on some sort of secret mission. I had been unable to correct her misunderstanding, not that I really wanted to, her behaviour was quite useful. In her eyes, I needed to make sure my skills and physical state were in perfect condition for the coming mission and given that I wanted to be in just that condition for the manual attribute generation process that had granted me my slightly inflated stats at the beginning of the beta, I wasn’t about to deny her. Even the smallest advantage in the beginning might be the key to reuniting with Sigmir.

And so I perspired, panted and cursed, only under my breath and in my mind, as Mrs Wu pulled out all the stops, pushing me as hard as possible while providing me with a tailor-made diet for these last few days before my mission.

My days had become a mix of working out, getting strange lectures from Mrs Wu, eating and sleeping, with little else I could do. The only thing keeping me from succumbing to exhaustion was the special diet she provided and plenty of sleep, making me feel decidedly odd. If I were to sleep this much normally, eight hours each night and a two-hour afternoon nap, I’d feel groggy and lazy but given the insane levels of exercise Mrs Wu pushed on me, it became a necessity.

One big advantage of the extra sleep was that my dreams had become incredibly pleasant. Each night, Sigmir returned to me, as I sat on the snow-covered mountain in the mist, holding me in her embrace and quietly talking to me. It gave me something to look forward to, even if I could never see her on the mountain, only feel her presence and hear her voice.

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At times, especially when I sat on my balcony in the evening or went up to the roof terrace of the apartment building I was living in to watch the night sky, I could even faintly hear her voice in the wind, asking me about my day or what I planned to do next.

Sadly, my plans to reunite with her were very much in the air. Pantheon Entertainment had sent me a message regarding my performance at the end of the Beta, though, as expected, they didn’t actually give me any details. Just that I had performed far beyond expectations and that the results of my actions would become known after the end of the Beta.

It was a little maddening, not knowing whether or not I had managed to perform well enough to reunite with Sigmir or what their actual plans were but there was little I could do. I had checked where their headquarters were, even looked at a couple of street-level images to see if there was any way to physically infiltrate their computing centre and somehow acquire Sigmir that way, but those ideas were pretty much dead before they could ever fully form. There were simply far too many problems and I lacked the practical ability, no matter how much Mrs Wu had taught me, I wouldn’t be confident in going down that route, not if there was hope to reunite with Sigmir without risking everything.

Finally, it was the day I had been waiting for. The Beta was officially over, the actual ending being a bit of a let-down, given the chaos I had wrought prior. The Nidhögg had been seen in the elven lands, poison, carrion and death dropping from its body, as the remnant spirits in the corporeal forms we had created for them hitched a ride, adding to the devastation its very presence was spreading. But other than those few sightings and the general devastation caused by my final spell, nothing more happened. That knowledge had managed to bring a grin to my face, knowing that I had essentially ascended to become the last boss of the Beta, it was an exciting feeling.

Sadly, due to my location, the game would start for me late in the evening, almost at midnight. To be able to dive straight in, I had slept through the day, only waking up in the evening and after an odd evening-breakfast, I decided to head up to the roof terrace, to enjoy the cold wind and the night, before heading into the capsule, to see what my efforts had brought to me.

Sitting on my usual bench, I looked up into the sky, frowning due to the light pollution obscuring all the stars, leaving only a gibbous moon in the sky, far from the glorious nights I had been able to see on Mundus.

“Say, love,” I faintly heard Sigmir’s voice, as the wind was blowing past me. Leaning back, I thought I could feel her arms resting around my torso, sheltering me from the wind and letting me feel comfortable. Letting out a content hum, I acknowledged her presence, hoping that she’d continue to speak.

“Do you know why the moon is blue?” her voice asked, and for a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about. Focusing upwards, I realised that the moon was truly blue.

But more important than it being blue…

It was also on fire.

Blinking, I tried to get rid of the odd image, to blink away the confusion, even shaking my head and standing, though that also removed Sigmir’s arms and the comfort they provided.

Regardless of what I did, the moon stayed as it was, shrouded by blue fire and now no longer the gibbous form it had before, but a full moon of blue fire.

“What in the world…?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

And there was no answer, not even Sigmir’s voice providing one.

Instead, when I looked around, my eyes were drawn towards the horizon and for a moment, I wondered if dawn had come early and why it was coming from the west today. Only, the light wasn’t nicely orange, it was blue, the same blue tinge the moon had taken. The same blue flames I had seen, whenever I looked at the logo of Road to Purgatory, a small part of my brain reminded me. Those same blue flames had formed a wave and were now surging towards me.

Before I could do anything but stare in awe and fear, the flames swept over me, leaving me seemingly unharmed, if not for one thing.

A blue box.

System Integration Beginning. Please stand by as the Planetary Astral River is formed, infusing the World designated as “Terra”.