On the other end of the tutorial was darkness. A musty, indoor darkness where Ipyo was tripped by his shins to the floor, bringing down a clattering array of other things with him. Ipyo only laughed.

“Alright, show me the store,” he said, smiling on the floorboards.

He closed his eyes and brought to mind an image of Deity’s menu screens. Unlike the tutorial he just left, the data didn’t show itself instantly. Rather, it was just black; inside-of-his-own-idiot-eyelids black. And the outside, blacker. But his eyesight slowly adjusted, and he realized he was in a village house, window letting in a view of a starless midnight.

“I don’t remember this area in any part of the game,” he said as he sat up.

Fumbling freely in the half-light, he hit off more edges, knocked over more clanging items until he found a lamp. Inside a traditional ceramic vase, painted with sprouting bamboo, was a boxy yellow thing that he had to screw around this way and that until it finally lit up, glowering a weak amber shine over the surroundings.

“If I just came out of the tutorial,” Ipyo murmured, as he immediately fingered the objects along the tables, chair and chest drawer, “Then this must be a player hub.”

He popped out a glassy blue orb, and admired it for a moment before chucking it back in its chest.

“What a waste of time when I haven’t collected anything yet.”

Ipyo circled back to the wall that had dropped him in. “Let me get into a match already!”

The plaster wall was engraved with foliage that had snapped off at the edges. He thought that it may have been a sliding door, but his efforts to unlatch it only chipped the decorations further. Ipyo stood back and thought about how a hub would work. Was there a portal to the game lobby hidden in plain sight? Ipyo stared down the wall.

I’m tempted to run into it. That’s what I’d require if I designed this place.

He took a deep breath to ready himself in case his pop culture brain would mislead him into a concussion, and gave out a stuttered breath, feeling goose bumps prickle as a chill wind curled around him.

“Who programs temperature simulation into a game?” But it wasn’t the only sensation that had managed to creep in through his nerves. The throbbing pain in his toes from stumbling over the footstool, the dull thudding in his hands from feeling the place out, those also lingered.

Ipyo clenched his teeth, withholding the fact that -perhaps this isn’t a game world- before spinning back to the window. Its deepest blues swelled in such a familiar way, a beating he recognised from hundreds of hours staring at his monitor, waiting to be matched into a game of ‘Deity’.

“No,” he said, a dry coldness seizing the soft skin of his lips, “This is real. I’m inside Deity! I just have to –”

Ipyo stopped as he found the front door behind an archway, obscured by the pitiful lamp. Led by his slowly slipping dream of playing his favourite game forever, he rushed towards it. A loose cloak rested on a coat hook by the entrance, and Ipyo, deciding not to be completely ignorant, took it with him as he left the hovel of a hub.

Tussling with the cloak, trying to keep its hood out of his eyes, Ipyo had barely put his second foot through the door when he had to gasp.

Outside the home was a tiny garden, not fit for a dog. And around that, an endlessly descending void. He took a couple steps, testing the ground as it crunched underneath him. The bulging sky that was so familiar in the Wrought Valley was gone. All the light he had now stemmed from a tower in the middle of the chasm he found himself in. Looking around, Ipyo began to realize that those were not greying stars all around him, but thousands of crumbling islands hanging in mid-air, just like the garden he was in.

“Oh shit. What did they do to this game?” Ipyo wondered, running to the edge of his new floating prison. Vertigo gripped him as he glanced into the imperceptible depths, but Ipyo slapped his forehead. Just a game, idiot. Think. Find the next location.

“There.”

Tying back the sleeves of his cloak, Ipyo bent down and began climbing down the rock face of his island, hopping down a dozen feet onto the edge of a larger island, in the shape of hollow ring. Slipping as he landed, his roll took him immediately to its edge.

I didn’t realise it was moving!

He watched his starting island fade as he sat upon the granite halo. Then forced himself up, trying not to think about what would happen if he slipped. Good thing I landed lengthways; I could’ve rolled off the edge!

Ipyo thought about walking, but the ring itself was like a moving highway. Spotting another island, Ipyo knuckled down and waited for it to come withing jumping distance.

This had to still be connected to Deity, but the way everything was laid out was so annoying -and inefficient! Ipyo thought the starting house would’ve contained a manifestation of all the sections of the menu;

A store to purchase new Deities and cosmetics; a record of his and other player’s profiles; and then, of course, a game lobby to connect to matches. To actually play the game. But evidently, whatever ludicrous asshole designed the interface for a full body simulation didn’t agree. The house might have been a representation of his collection.

-The orb in that chest was currency! Ipyo realised, as the next floating estate approached. He flailed blood into his arms, already feeling the strain of all the climbing he’ll have to do. The wind whipped his cloak around his sides as he leapt onto a hand hold.

He grumbled as he pulled himself up over the cliff face. “I hate platformers.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Pillars marked the entrance to a temple-looking structure, and Ipyo decided to take a quick breather. He leaned against the smooth black marble. Where is everyone?

Ipyo hadn’t expected any wildlife to be simulated, but neither was there any vegetation here. Just rock and earth. But where are all the players? Last I checked, Deity had 10 million users; how many could there be in this new version? Dusting the grey dust of the floating rock-lands, he headed inside the temple.

Shelves of books, urns and ceremonial incense filled lined the walls of the temple. Tracing his fingers over dust-filled bindings, Ipyo recognised some of the titles as tales that inspired the games playable Deities.

Seeing two altars through shafts of abyss-light, Ipyo smiled. “I guess I’m in the right place, he said, “Time to summon.”

He rubbed his hands together, then froze as he approached a placard sign before the leftmost shrine. It read;

[Fill the proper bowl with orb essence and perform the ritual of your chosen Deity]

Orb…essence?

Skipping over to the shrine on the opposite side of the hall, Ipyo read its placard and hoped it wasn’t as ingredient heavy.

[Place an orb here to have the temporary possession of a random Deity]

“Well, that’s just great. I knew I shouldn’t have left that stupid marble behind. How am I supposed to transport them and rock climb around at the same time?”

Pushing his hood over his head, Ipyo headed outside again, trying to map the way back to his starting island.

Pots rattled as he strode back down the hall.

“And I have to browse every single book here just to find the ritual?” Ipyo dragged down his cheek in anguish. “Who made this awkward-ass system?”

Ipyo readied himself for the obstacle course that would take him back to his collection, back towards his chest full of orbs. Resting against the pillars of the entrance before embarking, Ipyo’s cloak drooped down over his face, making Ipyo notice something.

He had glasses on this whole time. They came loose as he wrestled with the fabric, rattling against the grey marble steps as they fell.

“Who the fuck bothers to program lenses in my prescription?” he shouted, “Just fix my sight permanently, you morons!”

Kneeling down, he threw back the hood and slid the frames in over his ears and saw that he was not alone: On the other side of the island, a whirling queue of similarly cloaked players stepped spiralled towards a raised dais in the centre of a courtyard. This is the shaft of light I saw before. Is there a way up it? Is it perhaps a magic elevator?

“Oh,” Ipyo said, taking a step to the side, “I was wondering where all the other players were.”

Not a whisper passed through the synchronised shuffling of fabric over footsteps. Ipyo threw back on his hood with a frown. Staying at the edge of the courtyard, on the rim of the island, he watched them for any sign that he was noticed. This is weird. Properly weird. In all my years of gameplay, I’ve never met a Deity player as orderly as any one of these cultists. He shifted further around the side, until one of the robed figures glanced towards him, and he backstepped into the abyss.

The edges of the island’s sheer rock face grated his arms as Ipyo desperately tried for a handhold hold. No no no no…

Finding a bump that he could wrap his hand around, Ipyo swung with a grip that relied on the friction in his hands, diminishing quickly as adrenaline pumped sweat in between his fingers.

He dared not to look down, but there was no need; He knew that the midnight swell awaited him below like a hungry giant. If I fall -it’s just a game, right- I’ll respawn at the house.

Maintaining the balance of his hands, Ipyo could feel the strength, the blood emptying down out of his arms like a vampire’s hourglass. I might even save time, save the effort of crossing the other islands…

As his swinging body settled into Ipyo just hanging down, his memories from right before entering this game-world reared their head. The shop. He remembered the jeweller’s words, as he eyed that diamond ring with nothing in his wallet but a fat stack of determination.

"What leads you two in here?" asked the shop owner. He frowned, leaning his head in his arm, at the back of a store which was desolate aside from this sudden commotion.

He watched them, and his face rose from its resting spot like a dowsing rod. Tufts of hair slicked back behind his ears, the rest of his head shone with a mid-summer sweat. The jeweller lurched over to the couple, eyes twinkling.

"You stand far enough apart that I gather you two have not been together long," he said, "Yet you move so in sync, that I surmise you’ve had the pleasure of each other's company for many years."

The couple drew their hands back from the glass case over the engagement rings, but stood frozen like the last two chess pieces on a side of the board.

The shopkeeper chewed a leathery lip. "You want to get married, huh. Are you sure you're ready for this?" he asked, "I may be old, but I have eyes, and I know the world nowadays moves quickly for things like careers, but slower for the fundamental things. Things like honour and family. Are you two ready to endure a lifetime together?"

Ipyo and Yuri were taken aback, but quickly turned, ready to see the other's reaction. And in both was the same glimmer, the same look that was ready to lay down everything -ego, prosperity, time, energy, friends- for a chance to revisit their relationship and tie the loop. Both party’s feet, large and small, prodded forward as they held hands in public for the first time.

The shopkeeper cracked his neck back, standing straight and fiddling with his pockets.

"I see."

Snapping back to his situation -the deadly one at the edge of a cliff- Ipyo tried not to over-exert his hands. Whatever would have happened, he was instead stuck just outside his favourite game, away from the burdens of responsibility, of bills and domineering managers. But also away from another possibility, the slim possibility of working to the bone enough to purchase that damn ring for Yuri. To see her face as he kneeled down and presented her with it. As Ipyo accepted the yet unknown consequence of death in this new world, he thought he heard her voice.

“IPYO!”

As his hand slid off, he latched on with the other.

“Where are you?” Yuri cried, somewhere above him.

It was undeniably her! Ipyo grasped on for dear life, but his revelries had cost him valuable time and energy in his arms, who hung limp, worn from his bounding island to island. Ipyo shivered, his head flaring red with the effort of even putting the second hand over the bump that held him from death.

How the hell did Yuri end up in Deity, too?

For all his game knowledge, all his thousand hours getting to know the intricacies of Deity’s lore and combat systems, Ipyo would have given it up to be able to right-click and surmount this short cliff. But precisely because he had been an inactive gamer, lost in the virtual, that he could not get himself over the cliff by sheer muscle.

“Yuri, I’m coming,” he said through gritted teeth as he lowered his core back down. Flicking his legs to begin a pendulum, Ipyo prepared to swing at least his foot up over the cliff face. He may know the mechanics of Deity like the back of his hand, but he knew if Yuri was trapped in here with him, she wouldn’t be able to take it.

At max momentum, Ipyo spun his leg like an anchor with bated breath, clenching as his battered toes scraped against the gravel, and then stopped. Locked in. Hoisting the rest of his body over, Ipyo breathed heavy as he searched through the crowd of cultists to find the screams; to find Yuri. But none of the cloaked figures reacted. The cultists silently swarmed the dais as before -and there was Yuri, climbing onto it!

Limping forward, Ipyo tried waving, shouting, anything to get her attention. He jostled past robe after robe without comment, dragging his consciousness with him like a fist of sand.

“Yuri!” Ipyo called, mounting the dais.

Yuri guarded herself from the harsh light emerging behind her until, wincing, recognition bloomed within her and she ran towards Ipyo. And he to her. Towards the centre, where a beam of light burst forth and geysered the two out of the abyss.