Prologue

It’s my favourite game

“A world of wonders, loved by many”

“Embark on an adventure of limitless proportions and live through countless worlds!”

Slogan of Odyssey of Adventure, from Egosoft.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/919449166034403339/976141099561263164/Endless_Odyssey_Prologue_Lost_Vessels_V.jpg]

Space. The void wherein all things vanish forever, an abyss that consumes the gazes of countless eyes and the dreams and hopes festering therein, its beauty untainted by those who sail through its numberless seas of stars, death, emptiness and immutable silence… Or so it would normally appear, if not for the melodious chords being methodically yet delectably bowed on a surprisingly antiquated and black coloured viola, whose melancholic tones were mixed with the sporadic phrases lovingly sang by the unusual man playing it.

The lone human, who sat comfortably at the nose of an old, hulking, unmoving and partially rusty mass of green, bluish metal and aged technology barely recognisable as a spaceship with his feet hanging off its border as if he was touching the water of a pool with his toes, was apparently having a great day, his unusually beautiful yet masculine face slightly pinkish from the sole bliss and freedom he was enjoying after a job well done, if yet to be finished in its entirety judging from the fact that he was still up in a vessel not of his property but one that he had assailed and boarded under orders from a few of his many patrons, with lethal consequences to its owners.

In front of the violist, arranged in a bizarre and unusual manner, stood many a chair floating in space with a calm not often attributed to anything in such a circumstance, but this fact was not what anyone observing the scene would find most strange of all, oh no, that would surely be attributed to what the wizened and wooden pieces of furniture were carrying: each and every sitting was occupied by the freshly-made corpse –most of the victims were partly dismembered and had many a sign of being made so by one explosion or other, yet a few had very obviously fallen to more conventional, if horrific, means of death– of the musician’s targets, people that less than an hour ago were planning their next raid on a certain few organisations’ buildings before suffering the punishment for their actions in the form of a small, agile spaceship and a man specially known by his expertness on space combat –rumours they discovered to be awfully true– coincidentally interested in doing his job fast so he would not be late for that which he was waiting for that very particular day.

As he finished the beautiful song, the efficient man looked at the lazily floating asteroids all around the ships that he personally parked in such a way that one had to actually come real close for normal equipment to even identify them as such and a wolfish smile of blue and curiously sharp teeth crept up to his face when the terminal on his forearm decided to finally lit up, showing a holographic message accompanied by the robotic words being spoken by the ship’s AI, which, just like the viola, could be somehow heard clearly in spite of the existence of laws stating otherwise.

Whistling merrily, the unusual man stood up, his incredibly long hair following his wake by creating a screen of many-coloured straight locks behind almost his entire 2,07 metres of height and proceeded to put the instrument away on its classy case even though there was no practical need for him to do so and, with a pretty visible pep in his step, walked upon the surface of the decrepit and substantially damaged vessel before going inside it when the automatic door detected his presence; surprisingly, there was no difference in pressure nor gravity between the interior and the outside of the spaceship either, therefore no pressurisation procedure was necessary to avoid tragedy, and as such was the case, the fact that the man was not wearing a helmet nor a specialised suit should not be unexpected at this point, most of all from the view of the poor unlucky bastard whose eyes had just opened in the recent minutes gone by and were now looking everywhere in a mix of terror and confusion until his sight focused in the unusual man calmly walking towards him as if it were a normal thing to do, even in the situation they were both involved with.

“You’re finally awake,” ironically greeted the efficient man, cheerfully lifting his right hand in what seemed like a mock salute of some kind. “Did ya have a nice rest, sonny boy?” He asked without pause, smiling with a significantly fake worried tone over his olden yet melodious, sultry voice; the disguise created by his youngish appearance and countenance, more akin to what a middle-aged man would seemingly appear as, if at that, was ostensibly and worrisomely betrayed by the look on his insurmountably incongruent eyes and the menacing aura he projected.

The terrified recluse screamed instantly as he was reminded of the happenings that had transpired a while back, but no sound came from inside his helmet, for he was indeed wearing a suit designed for survival in the void of space, unlike his attacker, who inched closer without a care in the world and seemed to order the ship’s AI around before looking back at his charge, a mute expectation on his face that didn’t last long.

“Come on, less screaming and more talking, lad,” he said nonchalantly, before lowering his voice and pointing around the room. “You can’t smell the blood now, can you?” He asked eerily, convincing his victim to finally shut up after a healthy chuckle escaped his bloodless, bluish lips. “Yeah, your AI did a good job cleaning up the mess, which makes me question why the fuck you had the ship as dirty as you did when everything was peachy with your whole venture, but leaving that aside…”

The bound man gulped audibly as the stranger stood straight once again and the smile on his face vanished entirely although he was clearly whistling anyway; it was obvious now to the pirate that the one who had killed the entirety of the crew comprised of retired military men was not of sane mind nor probably someone to be negotiated with, not that there was anything the pirate could offer if it weren’t the case.

“I would like to think that you know why I was sent to deal with you ex-army bozos, but honestly, you don’t seem like the brightest tool in the shed, no offence,” he reflected rudely, one hand on his chin as if he was considering the situation carefully. “Well, not that it matters, since I was able to get basically all the info I needed from your ship’s data already, so I won’t have to dirty my hands with your sorry ass anyhow,” he continued, before a smile crept up to his face once again. “Which is fucking perfect, because today’s update and maintenance combo should end up around the time I’m done disposing of all of this,” he finished, happily spinning in place with both arms raised as if he was dancing, yet referring, terrifyingly so, to the vehicle they were in and all that such a thing meant.

Baffled to a great extent, the only thing the military man turned pirate was able to ask before such a strange individual, even though said gentleman was first able to outmanoeuvre thirty men and an AI on space combat, to later board the vessel and annihilate the few of the crew that had not fallen to his initial offensive, was: “Fuckin’ ‘ell, you’re login into Odyssey of Adventure later, aren’t you?”

The unusual man stopped moving completely for a moment and, after a few seconds of stillness, sprang like a hurricane, almost instantly hitting the dead man walking that was ironically sitting on a chair as he raced towards him, leaving a few particles behind with a trail of electrical blue that vanished almost instantaneously and without a sound, such was his reaction to talk of that game.

It was his favourite game, after all.

“Don’t tell me you actually play OoA?” The man stiltedly nodded yes in response. “Get out! Really?” Another nod was given. “Well, this is a weird as shit coincidence, but as one of the OG’s I’m always happy to meet other players,” he informed in a tone mixed with vanity and giddiness, the whirlwinds of stars inside his eyes shining. After a few seconds of silence, he apparently grew impatient and urged his charge to tell of his experience with the game, something the aforementioned man decided to do in hopes of delaying his more than assured elimination for, maybe, forever… with enough luck.

He had never been lucky.

“I began playing when I was on the military school on the Aelos System, around twenty-something years ago,” the man started, and was still surprised at the naivete shown by the enraptured killer, whose eyes of change eternal were looking at him with incredible attention; so still was the assassin that not even his greying blue, extremely long and silken hair moved an inch somehow.

Was his hair always blue and grey?, wondered the pirate silently.

“That was around the time they finally decided to go full hack and slash with the combat, while still conserving their JRPG roots,” remembered the efficient man, with a faraway smile on his not-so-old face. “Man, the first years were rough, with the whole turning-based combat in complete immersion thing,” he added, mutely chuckling.

“I can’t even imagine how nerve wracking not being able to do more than move with so many restrictions until it was your time to act was” the pirate whispered. “Ho—”

“Fortunately for everyone,” interrupted the killer, to the other man’s chagrin, “Egosoft rapidly made it so we at least had a somewhat fast turn bar, so things went from stupidly slow to almost real-time in combat, but it took them a while to finally transition into action RPG territory,” he added. “That was five years after launch, so… around 71 years ago? Yeah, that seems about right.”

The bound man blinked in a mix of confusion and awe, his mouth agape for a few seconds. “How old are you?” he asked, but his interlocutor simply chuckled joyfully, turned his back to him and proceeded to stretch instead of answer, his bones cracking sonorously as he did so. The ex-military man frowned, conscious of what such age meant while looking as young as his assailant did, and his hope fell starward, almost as if drowning in the darkness of the black holes nestled within his enemy's eyes.

“I was in there from the very beginning, you see,” the aforementioned menace decided to tell after a brief silence. “A friend of mine participated in the beta, and when the game released he managed to convince me to play with him so we could burn some stress off killing virtual monsters instead of,” at this point, the man lifted his hands up with a joking demeanour, “you know, doing it to the professors at uni who we were pretty sure hated us and thus wanted to see us dead as soon as possible,” he finished as he turned back to his conversation partner with a tone of voice that could have been that of a jest, or something leaps and bounds more terrifying.

Speechless, the pirate gulped, believing without a doubt in the words the man in front of him said, sure that even if his friend was more so just searching for an excuse to play with his mate, the slaughterer in front of him was very much not. Not with those eyes, he thought in contemplative silence, concentrating in something with great intensity, yet able to, seconds after, speak once again, sweat pouring down his brow as he continued to play the harmless, defeated enemy.

“Do you know the Black Largos company?” He unexpectedly asked.

The killer arched an eyebrow at his charge and nodded after a few moments of remembering. “Righto, even my company has had some struggles dealing with ones so focused on the PvP aspects of the game. Oh, don’t tell me—”.

The pirate smiled with what was left of his bloody and broken dentition, one more show of what his assailant was well capable of even if he did not want for his victim to die, at least instantly. “We were the founders. I am BlackBalls69, main Poisoner,” he revealed somewhat pridefully, his very white and untanned skin glittering with sweat, surprising his enemy.

“Man, I always thought it very ironic how you lot could be one of the more active companies yet have the stupidest of n—”.

A sound was heard in that instant, one that the killer recognised as fire expanding rapidly, and the pirate launched himself from the chair he was bound to, chains and handcuffs melted on his now liberated limbs as a sudden force took hold of the whole room, pressing everything against the floor with an abnormal magnitude of strength. Gravity, comprehended the assassin, his body falling downward as the boundless man neared him at great speed, a maniacal smile on his too-old-to-be-young face and a trace of flames behind him and growing on his open palm, ready to burn his enemy to cinders in retaliation and a very obvious pyromaniac desire.

With a muted sigh, the unusual man reacted in swiftness unseen, and his enemy had the most negligible moment to ascertain how in the killer’s left hand now rested a weapon that looked strangely like an old crossbow before a blue and shining bolt without a clear physical form was shot from its likewise azure strings, piercing through the right eye of the pirate with the ease of a burning sword through tender flesh, until it lodged itself into the skull at half length, sparks flying from the now burned materials of the helmet and the man´s flesh, whose raw smell mixed with that of ozone and filled the admirably clean room.

The efficient man stepped aside and, with a slight and somewhat sarcastic bow, let his charge fall gracelessly to the ground, wherein its blood started to pool, if scantily thanks to the cauterising done by the ephemeral projectile, which didn’t overstay its welcome after it had accomplished its mission, fading away in countless blue-coloured particles, as if it were never there to begin with.

“They always try the surprise attack, the sneaky bastards,” he complained, looking at the fresh corpse with a mixture of disgust and enjoyment hard to describe. “Fucking Balls, behaved just like in the game,” he said, reminiscing about his company´s dealings with the Largos. “Fucker did me proud,” he finished, kicking the corpse before looking upwards. “Yo, AI, initiate self-destruction countdown,” he ordered, turning around and walking towards the only exit even before the robotic voice verbally acknowledged his order, taking the viola case sparing barely a look at it.

“Received. How much time should pass before annihilation?” It asked professionally, and the killer arched an eyebrow in response.

“Right, this can of fries somehow works with an antimatter reactor…,” he whispered, thinking out loud. “Leave it to a bunch of military nuts to use fucking antimatter, of all things,” he spat with obvious displeasure. “Give me fifteen minutes before you end it all, will ya? That should be good enough for me to get out of this system and closer to some quality OoA time,” he answered a few seconds afterwards, more or less assured of his calculations.

“Understood. Initialising countdown in 5. 4. 3,” as the count went as they always did, the efficient man calmly and professionally abandoned the ghost ship and, once upon its nose, crouched while a little energy appeared on his legs and then performed an incredibly long yet fast-ascending jump through the infinite blackness of space that led him to his own old yet trusty vessel, little blueish sparks left on his wake; the weird phenomenon that fully and mysteriously enveloped the asteroid field seemed to flow into his body as he landed, tendrils and mists of blue, purple, pink, green and many more different hues receding and, ultimately, disappearing silently inside of him.

Not one to lose time stupidly, he rapidly entered the somewhat uncared-for looking ship, left the black viola and its case on what seemed like a wardrobe with a specially designed hole for it, and proceeded to sit on the captain’s chair with a riveting smile that became even fuller when he checked OoA’s server and saw that all was ready to go.

“Wake the fuck up, Sylvester, adventure is awai’ing,” he hollered with a silly, caricaturesque voice, giddy and impatient, and the lights on the silent ship suddenly all turned on before the voice one would picture as pertaining to a very collected and elegant butler answered.

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“Welcome back, master Gillian. Engines at fifty percent power and increasing,” it said, earning a satisfied nod from the wise man that was acting almost like a child on the morning of their birthday. “Do I plot a route to the nearest space station?” It asked afterward, albeit knowing very well what the answer would be.

“Nope, we’re going to old reliable, since I won’t be bothered with any bullshit in there,” the old man, at least under certain perspectives, replied disdainfully.

The artificial intelligence chuckled, and its master smiled with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Acknowledged. Route plotted to Brier Wind Station. Estimated time of arrival: four hours and thirty six minutes.”

“Nice. And now…” the old mage relaxed on his incredibly comfy and expensive captain chair, closing his eyes of starscapes and nebulae stained with the blood of the innocent while the gadget changed shape into a perfect sphere of shiny metal, swallowing him whole. “Gillian Gillespie, founding member of the Knights of the First Contact, comin’ to getcha.”

Instantaneously, the complete immersion system booted up, and he appeared in a virtual rendition of reality, bent to the wishes and whims of mortals; not waiting for any messages or notifications to pop up, he entered into the door that led him to his favourite game, and a gentle but all-encompassing light devoured him as he laughed, and then hollered with amusement, referencing a series from the old days, one of the few that somehow managed to survive for who knows how many years despite clearly having been divisive for many.

“Link-the-fuck start!”

****

The sword was eminently sharp, but it was with the strength of its wielder that it managed to cleave the monster in twain instantly. As the bisected cadaver fell to the ground, the knight in shining blue, white and golden armour bashed another one of the attackers with his beautifully crafted tear-shaped shield, pushing them back and stunning them long enough to focus his power and perform a terribly potent thrust that made the weapon glow brilliantly before it was stained red as it pierced its victim’s head cleanly, killing it instantly, as evidenced the particles of blood and energy it derezzed into before ultimately disappearing without a trace.

“Well, this is good enough for today, “ the terribly cliched and unoriginal rune knight said with the slightest hint of exhaustion shown in his noble and attractive face framed by golden locks and blue eyes of exceptional purity, almost like pretty little oceans. “I’ll just go back to the entrance and kill time for a bit before leaving.”

Can’t arrive late to this meeting, after all, he thought, barely holding his eagerness and curiosity back while he inspected the information he was sent through Sylvester, since, for once, it was not a reunion with members of the family or one of the many criminal undergrounds that contracted him once a blue moon so as to instruct him on a case that his steps were leading him to, but a parley with the people, under his viewpoint, of most importance in the whole universe.

A low growl made him refocus, leaving aside the thoughts of what was to come, and his azure eyes locked on in the figure which jumped down from the rocky ceiling: the monster was a traumatising and mostly illogical mix between a spider and a lizard, and it fell down with its rows of teeth directed at him, doubtlessly with the idea of biting him to death and devouring him, if enough was left after the bloody matter was settled.

The knight had another idea, as his sudden crouching could attest to: he pulled up his shield and, as the monster was about to bounce off its metal fortitude in answer to its audacity, the armament suddenly exploded with flame, covering the place with a flash of power, purity and destruction for but a second; the ambusher didn’t even manage to cry in pain before its body was blasted to cinders, and just as it all had started, all had also ended.

The man shook his head, slightly annoyed yet also a little bit bored —which was something he couldn’t help, since he was way too overleveled for the place he was at, and had only visited to try and get ahold of some interesting drops and materials, before resuming his walk, the metallic noise of his armour accompanying him with the music he knew from venturing in many a similar dungeon, if the place could even be called that without a boss to engage in merry asskicking with, of course.

If he had to be honest, the trip had been nearly fruitless, but at least he managed to find what his fellow Knights had asked of him to get if he had the time, and although Gillian didn’t possess too much idling to do on his hands after he finished another job demanding he hauled his ass and a bunch of illegal shit through a few systems with Sylvester being a fucking paranoid about the prospect of ghost robot pirates of all things —he probably watched something on the internet he shouldn’t have— following them in search of treasure, innards and processors, he did do his mates a solid, and expected them to repay in kind; getting him a rare armor would be nice, since everyone knew all that mattered at the endgame was a combination of killing things and killing things while looking absolutely fabulous.

Obviously, Gillian had brought many things for the sake of visual delight on his account and few characters, and it was always said favourably of Egosoft that the majority of money they got off players aside from the subscription fee came from diverse eye candy, skins and other kinds of silliness that rarely impacted the gameplay side of things, or, if they did, were modified extensively to not be a problem one way or another.

Looking back on it while he calmly stepped upon the bluish rocks and many puddles of the cavern, the rune knight could honestly say that he was content with the direction and past achievements Odyssey of Adventure had accomplished, a view that probably wasn’t just his bias talking since it was the only videogame whose developers didn’t change from its launch, even if it did not qualify as the oldest active in his neck of the woods, on a little edge of the —in his unfiltered opinion as an agent for hire lasting close to a hundred years of service and counting— cesspool of vileness, greed and corruption known as the Cabala territory.

Ugh, thinking about how bad this side of the universe is always makes me sad, he reflected, noting how his posture changed to slightly hunching over instead of regally and straightly walking forward as a true knight should, or as someone that liked to roleplay as such would act, anyway.

“OK, let’s just not think about this shit while playing, yeah?” He chided himself, after which he took a deep breath and, upon a few seconds of replenishing his patience, recovered a semblance of his knightly persona, instantly back to standing as straight as a quality longsword. “Now that’s better, and I am fairly sure the exit is right down the road”, he whistled, smiling when the steps lead him to the mouth of the cave at last.

“Stop right there, criminal scum”, said the burly voice of a giant shadow that placed itself between the knight and its escape to daylight, thinking itself not detected even though someone would have to be blind and deaf not to do so, even in a dingy lit cave. “Nobody breaks the law on my watch. I’m confiscating your stolen goods…,” at this point the one trying to sound threatening couldn’t stop his laughter, and Gillian walked up to him with a bemused chuckle.

“Yo, Ban,” he greeted with his shield arm while sheathing his longsword rapidly and without any theatricality, a subtle hint at how comfortable he was with his equipment and his knowledge of the area, since no enemy would pester them right there; this, of course, the giant of a warrior also knew. “Been a while, man, how’s it hanging?”

The human smiled in response, and then fist-bumped his old friend jovially, still not entirely able to stop laughing at himself for being a dork by making references to absolutely ancient media, even if some of it had resurged lately in the less prosperous planets. “What up, Gil?” He asked, turning around and starting to walk with his old friend toward the outside of the dungeon. “Had to be down the grid for a while, investigating some players to see if there were some things happening that could end up in a shitstorm for the company,” he explained, trying not to bore his friend with unneeded details, as he knew very well how `work talk´ made the man tune out of his enjoyment of the game. “You know how it is,” he quickly finished, and then his rubicund face lit up with excitement, silken and red hair billowing as he proceeded forward. “Aren’t you meeting the bigwigs today on the round of discussions they are doing with some pretty important players, actually?” He asked, arching his eyebrows rhythmically in a comedic manner.

Gillian held a chuckle off and then nodded with jolly. “Yeah, you got me almost at my leaving to get en route, man,” he answered, almost unable to contain his eagerness. “If I’m getting this right, having meetings on the surface ain’t exactly normal procedure, yeah?”

Banhammer the Viking opened his pale blue eyes with considerable surprise, which in his case made him appear almost cartoonish. “You can bet your biscuits it isn’t!” He exclaimed, obviously out of the loop regarding what the hell Egosoft was planning now. “That’s hella weird, not gonna lie, but considering how they are with future content, they are probably going to do something wicked in the coming updates!”

Feeling his excitement grow upon hearing the opinion of not only his best friend and the one to blame for his playing Odyssey of Adventure since the very beginning, but also one of the few game masters he knew and interacted with, Gillian laughed evilly, arching backward and crossing both arms over his chest, like no sane or respectable knight would do; one could almost say he looked slightly bizarre, and definitely unhinged.

“Whatever it is, it’s gonna be awesome, eh?” He gloated, feeling a dangerous mix of superiority and fulfilment within. “It was long overdue they called upon me once again to create something amazing, like that time with the haunted castle,” he reminisced, a laugh escaping his lips as he remembered the community’s reaction to the nightmares therein, only possible by the twisted mind of a real underground agent and his ilk.

“You know, awesome as it was, many people weren’t happy getting traumatised, even if it was advertised that the haunted castle event was only for the hardest of hardy gamers out there,” Ban commented, almost shrugging his shoulders. “The bad press on that front is probably why Egosoft hasn’t worked with you since then although you’re one of the most prominent players, your company itself notwithstanding,” he proceeded to theorise, to Gillian’s growing dismay.

“Kick the man down, why don’tcha?” he groaned, his high spirits brought a little bit lower and back to the usual mix of happiness and suicidal recklessness he felt while playing. “Also, it’s not my company, mind you, but Davidson’s,” he clarified with a dissatisfied grimace that his dear friend ignored as he always did when the topic came to Gillian choosing not to ever lead unless there was literally no other recourse but him doing as such. “So, not even you know what this is about, then?” he ultimately asked, the light of the setting sun bouncing off his armour and creating a myriad of little sunsets all around the two mates as they finally emerged from the cavern that was not even a decent dungeon and, therefore, irked Gillian to no end no matter how much value was actually inside for a patient and efficient adventurer.

“Yup. You’re alone on this one, buddy,” Ban surmised before opening both arms toward the shining celestial body hanging on the blue, cloudless skies, breathing inward with real enjoyment. “Man, they really did weather so fucking good; I haven’t breathed air this nice and pure since I had to go to a garden planet with family, and that was a while ago,” he complimented, doubtlessly not counting his experiences in complete immersion.

Gillian chuckled through his anxiousness. “How long ago is a while?”

“Forty fucking years, bruh,” he answered simply, earning a silent, reproachful stare from his friend. He smiled.

“I know I’m being a hypocrite by saying this, but you shouldn’t be flaunting that you’re an old cog, you fucking clown,” Gillian chided, then laughed as the smile on his friend’s face started to fall. “The Nulls vastly outnumber us mages here in Cabala, and you know as well as I do that both humans and their egotistical, god-playing and asinine creations are all but fools and greedy bastards, but,” at this point, Gillian plucked his sheathed weapon into the soil and stood in place, supporting himself by placing both hands upon its handle. “I am digressing hard today because I’m fucking nervous, man.”

Cracking up a little as his friend admitted to his own brand of stalling fear and anxiety, Ban enjoyed the view of the greenish plains before him, although they barely contained any trees or actual foliage aside from shortish blades of grass everywhere the eye could see. Content, he gave the old mage a sidelong glance before deciding to try and hopefully give him some courage back, which he also found definitely ironic considering the agent’s disposition, both in OoA and the real world.

“I’ve heard rumours of Egosoft maintaining some kind of talks with one of the ten, but details haven’t come to light nor have I been able to find out anything more from my sources,” he told, making his friend’s eyes open briefly in surprise before his face adopted a serious and pensive expression. “I see you are not that caught off guard, huh?”

Gillian nodded mutely. After a few seconds of reflection, he closed both eyes and started talking of his own findings, scant as they were. “I’ve also heard about one of the Sefirots making moves towards a technologically-oriented venture,” he started, then lifted his index finger upward to the blue skies. “To both our sources to tell us about such a thing… it must be fucking true,” he concluded, and a grimace bloomed in his face that not even the artificially beautiful avatar could mask.

“I reckon you’re not wrong, but… what could this possibly mean, then?”

“What else?” the man arched his brows. “They need Egosoft’s expertise for something, and whatever those sons of bitches end up doing, I can guarantee it’s going to suck dick for everyone who doesn’t have a fortune to spend every damn day,” he half explained, half complained. “Fucking hell,” he finished for good measure, now lamenting that they were in a place with no enemy spawns to annihilate and blow steam off of.

“Well, shit,” the giant of a man simply said, unsure of how else to respond that didn’t involve a string of expletives hurled at the bastards that ruled the Cabala territory with their countless fortunes and megacorporations.

A sigh escaped the now tired rune knight as he decided to just sit down momentarily while interacting with his virtual interface connected to Sylvester, to whom he gave orders to reach out to his contacts so as to try and get more information before what could possibly be a very horrible meeting; potentially dangerous, even, if Egosoft was being now ordered around by one of the damn ten. Even more than one, if the whole of the universe or, more probably, the God of misfortune, had decided to fuck with Gillian on a very personal and prejudiced level.

“You alright there, buddy?” his friend asked, more so out of concern than anything else; he had always been a kind soul, even with the cards life dealt to him. Unlike me, the agent thought darkly with a growing, sinister smile as the virtual interface lit up, information flowing through secure channels as the quantum net let it pass from distant planets and hidden buildings surrounded by evil and vice.

“Yeah, don’t worry about little old Gillespie,” he answered, looking the game master in the eyes with a gaze no just and honourable knight would ever hold. “I’ll deal.”

Banhammer audibly gulped, yet felt more assured now than never that his friend would hold back on his feelings towards Egosoft and the situation at hand and act with dispassionate and chilled caution, which made him even more dangerous than when he recklessly threw himself amidst countless dangers.

“Well, guess I have more reasons to leave right away than I had before your visit, my friend,” Gillian chuckled sombrely. “It was a pleasure to be with you for a while, even if we old fools ended up talking about shit better left on the surface” he affirmed with a calming smile that much better suited a hero than his previous, terribly darkened expressions borne from much darker, yet darker feelings and experiences.

“Man, I feel like I ruined your day, very much so, but I hope we are actually mistaken and Egosoft just wants to make you a game master like me or whatever you would like to do for them instead,” Ban said, tone tinged with hope and a little bit of terror.

“That would be something, eh?” the false knight laughed and comically waved goodbye from the earthy soil. “See ya, friend”, he said as his avatar was engulfed by a pale blue light and disappeared completely without a trace, leaving Ban to his thoughts and fears.

“I hope nothing goes wrong, old friend,” the giant warrior prayed. “For their sake, more than yours, truth be told,” he added with a weak, fading smile, as the foreboding feeling that had been clawing at his heart suddenly turned heavy as stone and uncertain as fog.

Ban stopped smiling.

****

Gillian Gillespie had woken up a while ago, but felt as if he had been captive of an inexplicable limitless darkness for a very, very long time: his body was eerily unresponsive, his quick and perceptive mind slowed to an irritating crawl and clumsy, and he could barely feel any strength on his old but sturdy bones. Confusion clouded his thoughts as the more recent memories appeared to be recovered from the fading clutches of the shadows that he felt had been jailing him, and so he finally opened his eyes and saw the moonlight filtering through an entirely unnatural hole produced on the ceiling of what he understood to be some kind of lone, solitary cavern.

How he had ended up in such a place or why it was the case, the old mage didn’t know, but his inquisitive soul demanded him to wake the fuck up already and so he finally managed to curl the fingers in his right hand, noting, as he did, the utensil placed on it.

“My… sword,” he managed to say, eyeing the weapon cautiously, and his mind tumbled down, even more confused as it took stock of the crossbow resting on his other hand, then the clothes he wore. “This is… so damn weird,” he concluded lamely and decided to stop talking so as to focus on the matter of recovering the energy he needed to what he felt was fully waking up after an unreasonable amount of time being… unliving?

What the hell does that even…?

The ephemeral thought slipped past his consciousness just as he caught it, and the old mage shook his head clear with mixed feelings as he pondered on why he had thunk such a depressing thing in the first place when a sound that seemed like a bell played in reverse, drenched in an awful, incongruous dissonance enveloped in arrhythmic reverb assaulted his mind, shattering the little calm he had been able to collect with an extreme, wilful and maleficent prejudice.

W⚰lcome t▶ [Struggle until it stops hurting] y🌠ur Endless Odyssey!

Smiley Face. ☻

“What in the actual fuc—”