[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Asadullah Khan]

[Level: Invalid]

[! Log Translated From Urdu !]

Asadullah cursed as Verity threw herself off the platform, rushing towards the base of the tube.

“Come on, Babur, you gotta get us down there.” He commanded, nudging the djinn back into the bangle.

“I don’t like this. This- humans and djinn have been working towards trying to piece together Purest Magic for decades.” Babur complained, before slipping inside and pulling Asadullah’s hands into claws, allowing him to scale down the wall after Verity.

Magic was a language, Asadullah had learnt from the people who made his bangles. A language that changed the world when spoken or written into existence. Purest Magic, it seemed to follow, was the most powerful form of the many types of magic.

Of course, computers would change the way that this would work, but he understood the idea. He expected Verity to go directly for the computer plugged into the column. Instead, she skidded to a stop on the ground, and went directly to the column, pressing her face up against the thick glass.

“Is something wrong?” He asked, stumbling slightly as he landed on the ground, his tail only just growing back in.

Verity pointed at the floor of the column, her eyes bright, “Think you can read that?”

Asadullah squinted, and his eyes were able to just make out the object on the floor of the base of the column. It was a book, and the roiling green electricity whipping around the column seemed to be rooted to it, like the tail of a tornado. It was rocking back and forth from the force of the Purest Magic, allowing the cover to be visible for a brief second. The translator lingered for a second longer, allowing him to read it properly. ‘Research Notes of Eleanor Monroe’.

That must be where the Purest Magic had been condensed and created. A lot of secrets were probably stored in there. He hovered over her, waiting in case she lashed out and tried to grab the book. Verity had been more scrambled here, her attention jumping around and latching onto things haphazardly. He didn’t trust her to make sober decisions, as awful as that sounded.

He was also on a very short time limit. Terry had less than a day’s time to live, and it was on Asadullah to change that. So, when Verity made no move in the next few minutes to break the glass, he instead took a step back and looked around.

There were doorways down here, leading into other rooms. Asadullah went for the one closest to him. It was a sterile lab environment. Lots of glass and tiling. Monitors were mounted on the wall, displaying readings and dates and graphs. He didn’t pay them much mind, as he was more concerned with the walls on either side, which were entire ceiling-to-floor windows, separating them from the rooms on either side, all which were narrow spaces lined with human-sized tubes. Five on the left side, more than two dozen on the right.

There were people stuffed in some of the tubes on the right. Eyes closed, looking for all the world as if they were asleep. Asadullah’s eyes caught onto a pale, dark-haired boy he remembered, but only vaguely. There was a label on his tube, he realized, when he looked up. Marc.

Finally, he recalled the guard in Hygeia. With the dead eyed stare. Just like the sparse few people they had seen walking around the place. These were Mobs. Were all the people who worked for the Developers Mobs? Who was even in charge of this place? And if this side housed the Mobs, then what was on the other side?

The tubes on the left side were all empty. But the names were still there. Lucian, Hargreaves, Burkes, Verity, and finally, Ciera. Their names were starkly branded on the metal, with no further explanation. And what more could be said? This was where the Harbingers were stored when not on the field. Verity’s place amongst them had been kept, even ten years after her escape.

He tore his eyes way, instead turning to look at the actual research happening in this lab. There were samples of mold in petri dishes, he realized dimly. All marked clearly with the name m. potentia. Terry’s zombie cure.

There were bits of chemicals being displayed on monitors, and simulations of twitching zombified appendages, reacting to the fungus. Repelling it. Absorbing it. They were building a way to reject the cure Terry had built.

Sample Obtained in Realm L-37, one of the monitors noted, under footage of a glowing green rock in a glass box, while a yellow machine with a dial reading beeped in front of it. Someone had put up a sticky note onto the monitor, writing down in strangely pristine handwriting: ‘Test Bomb in L-36 Takeover?’

He pushed down bile and backed away from the monitor, turning to head out of the other door in the lab, to get some air away from the horrors.

When he opened this door, he found himself in a stairwell, with windows overlooking a slate-grey industrial wasteland spread out below in carefully maintained boxes. The skies were blue. The sun was yellow. People marched in orderly rows. Robots flew over the skyline, and no one spared a second to glance up or be concerned.

Asadullah stared at it. The world that had unleashed such horrors onto Mira. Onto all the worlds. Which had driven the people of Delica into hiding, clinging to flimsy computerized armbands. This was it?

He didn’t get a closer look, however, because in the second, someone squeaked and dropped a sheaf of papers. Asadullah looked blankly down the stairs, where a glassy-eyed non-descript man was trying to gather up the papers he had dropped, before looking up at Asadullah again in horror.

“Are- are you one of the djinn fusion experiments?” He asked, before shaking his head, “Sorry, sorry, you probably don’t know what that means, if you’re from Minefield. Just. Just stay there.” He motioned with an outstretched palm, reaching towards his belt for the comm clipped to it-

Asadullah didn’t even wait for him to raise the alarm. He darted back into the lab, and slammed the door shut, jamming the doorknob shut. The person on the other side banged on it loudly, shouting something that was muffled by the door. He didn’t pay them any mind, ripping the cabinets and moni9tors off the walls, trying to barricade the door for longer.

Babur pulled itself out – and it was surprising how easily they fell apart, after being melded for the better part of a decade – and landed on top of the materials he had piled there, warping them all together until it was tightly wound over the doorway.

The banging was getting louder; more people had been alerted already. They left the labs and melted the edges of that door to its pane, leaving them in the room housing the Purest Magic.

“You counted six other exits in here.” Babur reminded him quickly, “I’ll seal off the rest to buy you two time. But figure it out quickly.”

Asadullah nodded and turned back to find Verity.

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

Instead of being glued to the glass wall, he instead found her by a computer on the side of the room, which was plugged into… his eyes traced the power cord, seeing where it linked to the much thicker output cables. Dammit. That must be what had prompted Verity to jump down here. The computer which could rewrite the System, and reality itself. No limitations except death itself.

“It’s pulling up the Files that we ask for.” She confirmed, not even reacting to his presence as she continued to type, “And there are certainly options available for us to make changes.”

“But how can we know for certain it works?” He asked.

Her eyes looked up at him consideringly, before fixing back onto the screen, “We’ll know in a few seconds.” She said. He worriedly read over her shoulder, to find that the file she was on… was her own. It wasn’t a Player File he was accustomed to, though. It was an enemy file. Like the System used to denote enemy zombies.

[Name: Verity Monroe]

[Age: 18]

[Class: Armageddon-Harbinger]

[Level: 17]

[Active Powerup: Arsenal Coat]

[Alignment: Hostile to Player Characters]

Her mouse lingered on the status portion for a second, and then changed it to neutral. Then she went to the class and switched that to Rogue. There was a button on the side of the computer’s keyboard, standing out because it was green in comparison the black of the rest, and neatly labelled, ‘Upload’. When Verity pressed it, there was a second as the Purest Magic in the column shivered in response.

Verity hunched over too, shaking slightly.

“It’s done.” She whispered, staring at her hands, “It’s- I- I’m not a Harbinger anymore.”

“Great.” Asadullah replied patiently, going for the computer himself and beginning to type in Terry’s name, “Now, if you don’t mind, I have something very important I need to-”

[Error 404 – The File You Are Looking For Does Not Exist]

He blinked, checking the English alphabet spelling. He knew how Terry’s name was spelt. He had written it down right. He wrote it down again, just in case.

[Error 404 – The File You Are Looking For Does Not Exist]

He bit down a frustrated growl and began to type it again. Verity slowly brought up a hand to stop him, “You know what’s happened.” She told him quietly, “He’s dead, Asad.”

No, no, no! Asadullah had done it! He was here! He could fix Terry! He just needed a few more minutes.

Asadullah sank down to the ground, back pressed up against the wall as the situation hit him once more. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t cry. They were right outside. Panic was searing every part of him.

“What are we supposed to do now?” The helpless plea slipped from his mouth.

“We could delete the entire Realm.” She offered, “No Developers means no one to mess with the System.”

“Sure.” Asadullah agreed, laughing hysterically, “If we know who all the Developers are. Or even one of them. If we have the time to delete all of them perfectly. They’re closing in on us, you know? We gotta work something else out. A quick fix.”

“There’s no such thing as a quick fix.” Verity replied immediately, “If something has to be fixed, then it will take time, and conscious effort. That’s how we know it’s working.”

Babur laughed as it darted over to them, “You quoting someone?” He asked.

“Jared, actually.” She replied, eyebrow twitching. And then, all annoyance fled from her face, instead replaced with gleeful inspiration, “I think I got it!” She grabbed at the processor of the computer, where the monitor and the keyboard were all connected. Except instead of jiggling any of the ports, she picked up the cable that connected it to the Purest Magic. And with one flick of her wrist, she pulled it off.

Nothing happened.

Well, the computer shut down. But except for that, nothing happened.

Verity frowned, “Well… uh… I wanted that to break the Purest Magic translator. To stop them from being able to get or change any information from the System.”

Oh, alright. Asadullah could see why that would work. It would severely handicap themselves, too, but in the bigger picture, it would be the Developers who would feel the loss the most.

“Why didn’t you say so?” Babur wiggled slightly, “You need to get to the anchor in the middle there.” It indicated the book inside the column by transforming its tail into an arrow, “And destroy at least one rune inscribed in it.”

Verity looked at him in disbelief, “Really? Just one rune?”

“Yeah! Every single character is essential in stabilizing it. That’s why magic is so hard to distill!” Babur yelled back. Asadullah didn’t care for all the exposition. He picked up a metal rod and began ramming it into the glass near the ports, where it was weakest. Cracks spiderwebbed their way over the shield with every desperate hit.

Before it could break, though, the door to the platform they had entered the room on was torn open. They both looked up to find Ciera storming inside, her voice echoing loudly through the room.

“Listen here. I have had a very long day, and have been bested by the same group of wannabe revolutionaries for the second time in a row, so whatever crackpot experiment on the fritz you are, I want you to behave!” She announced, eyes wandering over the walls, not seeming to spot them or the cracked column immediately.

Verity took advantage of that to pull back her fist, bunch her jacket over it, and then ram it into where the cracks ran the thickest.

If before the cracks had simply spread, this time the glass shattered.

Ciera howled, dismay and outrage and fear – actual fear. There was something that even a Harbinger was scared of – but Asadullah didn’t have time to look at her face. He was too busy rushing through the avalanche of glass and green lightning, making a beeline for the book in the center.

There was writing all throughout it. Some English, some Urdu, even more unidentifiable, but the one he fixated on was the glowing runes sketched out throughout the book. Some in the beginning. One towards the middle. A good dozen made up the last few filled pages, before giving way to blankness.

People were surrounding them, armed with guns and spears with electrified ends. He held the book close to him, his fingers burning from the exposure to the Everything, and with one shivering hand, he ripped the last page into two pieces.

The Purest Magic disappeared instantly. And its absence was sincerely felt. Already, lights were shutting off, Mobs were vanishing, bits and pieces of the lab were abandoned for the void.

Ciera was looking around in confusion, having gotten down from the platform, “What’s- what’s happening?” She asked one of the other guards. Her voice was small. Scared. Confused in a way no Harbinger had ever been.

“This was all just an elaborate transformation spell.” Asadullah answered for her, feeling bitterly vindicated, “You wanna tie reality up into a little box? Once the box is gone, everything’s just gonna snap back into place. Put things back to where it knows it’s meant to be.”

“Yeah!” Verity agreed, before frowning and looking at her fingers, which were looking fainter and less solid than normal, “Wait, where am I meant to-?” She was cut off as she vanished too. Not in pixels, but an organic mist.

Asadullah didn’t have time to worry about her fate, as he felt his own body shiver in anticipation, breaking down into mist just like hers.

“Hold on!” Babur called out to him, speeding towards Asadullah. He had scarcely just wrapped himself around Asadullah’s arm before Asad’s whole vision was fogging over.

When it cleared, he found himself sitting on a mountain path, overlooking a whole mountain range.

He stared up at the sky, hardly daring to believe it. But it was true. This was Mira. And the sky was still an ugly steel gray. But it was getting lighter, he could tell. The blue was bleeding in more by the second. The robots that were moving around had gone still. Some were falling right out of the sky.

Between the mountains, he could still see the tiny village he had been proud to call home. It still seemed to be in one piece. And the townspeople must be relatively alright if Rubina Auntie had brightly dyed Eid laundry hanging out to dry. Asadullah really had protected them.

It was a relief, to know that it all hadn’t been for nothing. Even as his heart still beat in phantom panic. Even though he was never going to see Terry or Ben or Michael again. Or even the ones who had walked away from that alive. They were never going to reach each other again.

“Whaddaya say, tiger?” Babur asked, winding himself around Asadullah’s arm, “Head back home?”

“Alright.” He agreed, getting ready for the miles long walk. Babur scoffed and snuck into his bangles, boosting his height, and wrapping muscle around his legs.

Take the fun route, will you? The words echoed in his head, even as sparks of yellow danced over his skin like static.

He hesitate for moment then pitched himself off the side of the cliff, letting the wind whistle through his ears and hair as he ran, taking in the familiar scents of the trail he had ran for years.

Sure, there was the smell of gunpowder and blood lingering over the whole place, but it would fade, with time. Just as all things did.

[Player Log End!]