Alaska hated everything, her prized living staff of ultimate magic was shattered when Allen revived Koreimim as a giant robot, which was cool but left her with a broken staff and no cash to get a new one, all the promises to make her a new better staff were just hot air as far as she was concerned, they were just toying with her, the children had their own game of reinventing everything, Redfox21 was allways with his master and her own master was as scarce as ever, they even took her spear because now it could talk.

"My kingdom for your frown", the message bloomed in her head like every time the emperor hopped for a visit, "why the sad face?", she knew he couldn't see her but she was probably leaking mental images into their shared space.

"I am left out", she thought into the private chat, "my most prized possession is a dried date from the emperor of the seas"

"Well I could say the same thing darling", hearing the profound sadness in his voice got her attention, "my lieutenants sold me out", now it was anger seeping through the chat, "killed my friends", the emotions were crushing her, "I need you Alaske", she was out of breath, "come to me".

Alaska breathed deep the mountain air and ran to the hangar, passing by some scuffle between Meroa and Allen as she took off from the private runway and turning to fly to the thunder islands where she fealt her heart was beating, picking the shriveled date from her inventory and mulling it in her fingers she stepped on the accelerator and pushed faster with the hidden blasters at full throttle.

Storing the date Alaska tried to achieve some order in her thoughts, the emperor needed her, he was hurt and alone, he needed her and that was enough to push her beyond the limit of safe flight speed without a care in the world, a manticore screeched behind her with no chance to ever catch the supersonic plane blasting through its territory.

Breaching the clouds with a trail of frost Alaska marvelled the open seas before adjusting her flight path to meet the emperor in his destination, with the Odacious in her sights surrounded by a few hundred other ships she quickly called the emperor on their private chat to prevent friendly fire when the world flickered.

It was so brief she thought she passed through some magical barrier and she would never have noticed it if she wasn't linked to multiple instances at the same time, while waiting for the emperor to answere a second flicker occured which gave her pause and when the emperor finally joined her the system shut down entirely, on one side she was in a lit room sitting with the emperor on a comfortable couch while on the other instance none of he senses registered anything at all.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"What is going on?", she finally exclaimed, "why are my blockers on full capacity with no stimulation?"

"I have no idea", Slom answered after trying to access the other instance, "but it seems your timely call just saved me from something unpleasant", smiling he called for a drink and sipped the cup.

"What do you mean?" breathing slowly as the void had some kind of soothing hypnotic effect, "did we die?"

"The game world died", his smile grated on Alaska's nerves, "something caused the servers to shut down and recalibrate an effect", sifting the drink and raising his right cheek, "it's not the first time this happened to me", he added, "just the first time it happened at this scale".

"So it will all come back?", not sure if he was the right man to ask.

"Most definitely it will come back", focusing his eyes on something behind her, "and we will all be compensated for the inconvenience", then she figured he was actualy reading his HUD messages, "but before it happened millions upon millions of Players and NPCs died", reading on, "and I don't think they will be overjoyed about any of this".

The world returned in the main instance and Alaska had to pull up or hit one of the ships, with some skilled maneuvers she landed on the deck of the Odavious before anyone had time to register her approach thanks to the blackouts, there might be something worth exploring in the void if she could get there again without shutting the whole system down, it was an instance within an instance, much like the private chat room, but it also kept her in motion without touching anything else.

Running through the decks and getting some uncomfortable feeling going deeper into the ship than she had ever gone before, passing the cargo and treasure decks had her in jitters, "where are you?", she finally asked in the chat.

"Oh oops", the only answer she recieved before he logged out and she lost his mark on the game map, already knowing where it was Alaska pushed forward to the gutters of the ship where the muck hatch loomed before her.

Casting "Deprive sense" on her nose came as a blessing when her eyes started welling with stinging tears, "mage hand" opened the door for her and "floating disk" let her descent into the lowest hell of the Odacious, following the sounds rising from a live conversation she found a ratman sitting on a throne of bones and playing skulls and spades with the emperor and an unknown sailor.

"Hello there", the ratman called, "come join us", and with a gesture of his hands the couch the emperor was sitting on extended in a wriggling manner and she could finally see that it wasn't fur, or at least not worked out fur but a mass of rats and her bowels finally gave up with an artistic arch of her half digested lunch.