Serion woke to a faint ringing noise, it was the only thing he could hear. He made a few mawp noises until he could barely hear it. It actually helped a little.

Glancing around himself while on the ground he could make out the silhouettes of mages, knights, and soldiers laying everywhere. Blinking a few times his vision started to clear up. He could start hearing what was going on around him which was like listening to something down a hallway. It was mostly moaning and faint calls for help.

That spell had been strange, could it have been mass silence or confusion? He slowly got to his knees. The strangest sight greeted him, as far as his eyes could see figures in colorful robes and armor red and blue primarily stretched before him. He’d never seen the like.

It was almost like a mass sleep in or slumber party in the middle of day. Banners and pennants whipped in the air and artillery lay forlorn in the backs of the armies. Spying Natas at his side he started pushing the woman’s shoulder in the attempt to wake her. Opening her eyes she quickly recognized him and she started standing up only to fall to her knees and started puking.

Gross Serion thought, wait she’s puking. He couldn’t remember anyone puking before in game. That’s odd, what the hell is happening? By the groans and talking around him he could tell quite a few others had become sick as well. This shouldn’t be happening.

Even getting some sickness debuffs wouldn’t make it possible to puke unless it was a special attack like the one trolls had. Someone sensitive to getting sick in game could make them sick in real life too. This would be dangerous to players who could then choke to death on their own vomit. In fact they should have woken up from getting that sick too due to the safety systems in place. The game monitored players at all times by their VR headsets, if the users body also went over a certain amount of stress they would wake up and in severe cases emergency services would automatically be called.

This safety function had saved a few lives in the past and the game developers were applauded for their ingenious idea. People had of course tried to hack their headsets to turn off some of these functions but one of the first tests the equipment made when logging in was to check all hardware followed by software. Even at 99% functionality of either it would refuse to let a player get into any game or access any features. Large groups had argued that it was simply a ridiculous ploy to get more money out of customers even with a company policy of trade one in and get one refurbished set back as long as they hadn’t been tampered with. Serion still had his first.

Ignoring the people that were sick around him Serion looked at the NPCs. They didn’t appear to be sick at all. In fact they looked like they were recovering much faster than the adventures. He figured that was a good thing since it would prevent other oppurtunists from taking advantage and cutting them down. But he couldn’t shake a sensation of dread at his core.

“Hey Serion I’m gonna log for a bit. I can’t message the wifey after that blue light thing. She always forgets things at the store and it’s my fault somehow,” spoke Wills a fellow guild mate.

“Sure. Let me know when you get back.”

The Knight Captain seemed to be looking right at him. The NPC was holding his hand to his ear like he was using a phone. No, he was using a speaking stone. That would be an expensive object for a NPC soldier.

The Knight wasn’t the only one though, Serion saw group leaders on both sides listening. A speaking stone cost its weight in gold. Why would all these soldiers have them? It was a vast fortune that seemed to be thrown away in his opinion. Sure it increased the communication effectiveness of the whole army but only high ranking officers took them. They could afford things beyond the common rank and file. Also who were they all talking to?

The lead knight suddenly dropped his arm. He started yelling at his men surrounding him and then pointed at Serion. Oh holy shit, the dread had turned to ice in his veins.

“Thirteen! With me!” he ordered. His guild makes too slowly in his opinion made their way to him. “Pretty sure everything is about to go from bad to fuck me sideways. Buff up and ready spells.”

In his head he thought Arcane Barrier but nothing happened. He felt nothing, no magic leaving him to form a barrier. Around him the others were having the same luck if their confused expressions were any indication.

Now the Knights had reached the edge of his player group.

“By order of the King of Reckett and his Northern allies the Clans of Treageia all adventurers are under arrest for treason. Go quietly or be killed where you stand.”

One adventurer he knew only by his class of Summoner stood in front of him. “Your our allies, we are fighting Treageia you boob. Now go hack some peasants apart.”

Calmly the Knight spoke, “Your defiance has been noted.” With that said he whipped out his sword and decapitated the player. A beautiful stroke Serion thought. Blood spurt into the air with the pump of his heart. The Mages body stood for a few moments and like a puppets strings cut, collapsed.

At his side Pyron asked “Are they allowed to do that? This epic battle is turning into a real shit show now.”

Serion considered what to do about the Knights. They all had swords and shields ready. An Arcane Blast would be perfect right now but alas that didn’t appear when he commanded it either. He started going through a list of his powerful spells but like his previous attempts nothing happened.

Perhaps that was the real problem? All the spells he had been trying to cast were high level, could low cost basic spells work? The lowest form should still be enough for some of these NPCs. Pointing his hand he cast the most basic spell he could think of that all mages had even when starting new.

“Magic Missile!”

A small blue orb shot at the Knight Captain. It hit him head on and Serion thought that’d show him who was boss. Only he was still standing. Not only that, he was actually smiling!

“What gives?! With all my points it should’ve blown his head off! At least burned his flesh a little,” he pondered aloud holding up his hand.

He heard “Kill them all!” and looked up to find a wall of steel descending on them.

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His fellow guild members had at least figured out a few things from his pathetic display. A fireball flew past impacting a shield. One knight went down with a rock spike in his knee. The dead adventurer lying on the ground from earlier got up moaning.

Even with the few spells they were casting it was too little too late Serion knew. The knights were being aided by other soldiers now, spears were taking down warriors from the side. Players were being cut down all around him. They were in serious trouble, NPCs were all around them. What had once been a buffer against surprise attacks by fellow PvPers had quickly turned into a tightening noose around their necks.

Thinking quickly he remembered a lower tier spell. One of his favorites was Arcane Blast, an AoE (area of effect) spell. Before it had evolved into a much better and more powerful casting it was Arcane Bomb. He felt the mana inside him, he could cast it. He would blanket this very field with death!

Serion cast Arcane Bomb above the Knight Captain, another near the spearmen off to his right and another at a group of knights hacking away at Drecksis. Suddenly the feeling of mana was gone.

He felt drained as if he’d run a marathon. Falling to his knees he observed the bombs were just hanging in the air. His targets had observed the hanging blue orbs and wisely stepped away. After a few seconds they burst apart destroying little.

That didn’t go as planned he decided.

“Now then mage, your turn,” a deep voice spoke. Uh oh, that Knight Captain was next to him. Serion tried to summon something, anything. It took all his focus just to look up at the man.

 “I got special orders for you. Though forgiven we never truly forgot your group’s crimes. I’m going to enjoy this.”

Serion was knocked to the ground by a steel clad boot. The Knight’s foot held him down while his sword creeped towards his chest. He grabbed a dagger he kept on his belt and tried to hack the limb holding him down. It was enchanted with armor piercing and should have cut through the metal with ease. Instead it screeched against the armor leaving a light scratch.

The sword finally made contact and penetration. All-encompassing burning agony the likes he had ever before experienced. His only existence was just pain.

He could just make out laughing as his life fade.

Blood red ‘You have died’ appeared in front of him. Well at least that hadn’t changed.

His awareness slowly returned. Phantom pain echoed in his chest and he was surrounded by darkness. So much agony it shouldn’t be possible.

His pain threshold was set on 20% which was the lowest it could go. While leveling he always had it set to the maximum of 50% to get more powerful quicker thanks to the experience boost from all sources of 30%.

After reaching level 100 he’d started dipping it down because gaining levels from there on had decreased gains and it wasn’t worth the pain. Some people complained on not being able to set it higher but they were sadists in his opinion. Besides the game developers had tried it out with beta testers and had quickly found many of them flat out refusing to play again until it was lowered. Serion could imagine torture at such a high level and it sickened him. Sure he had done torture in game, quite a few times in fact and had it done to him in turn.

Floating in the dark void he knew it was for what it was in the game, death. The sickness, the pain, the stink of chopped up bodies and war. It was almost like the game was well, real life or at least more so then ever before.

It was like the game no longer shielded players from the worst of real life’s possibilities. It took place after the blue light explosion. Was that it? The key to all this? He’d never witnessed a spell of such power before. His characters mana had been depleted, his mana stones had shattered. It was a mana vortex on a scale he could never have imagined possible. For a spell like that it was always a prelude to another spell, gain mana and then unleash it. What the hell had they casted?

Time passed. Stars appeared. One brighter than all the others, it grew becoming a sun. Light grew or he raced toward it. There was no sensation of moving or hearing. Like so many times before it engulfed him and with a thunderous clap he found himself back in the guild hall. To his dismay he found himself facing two very naked men.

“What the hell is going on? Why are you naked? Put some clothes on!”  he shouted putting his hands out shielding his eyes from anything he did not want to see.

“Good, good you’re here. Look at this, do you see? Do you understand?” asked Morthius.

“I understand you’re in your birthday suit and I’ve already seen far too much.”

Mort stood before him with an excited face for a moment more than seemed to realize his state of undress and his face flushed in embarrassment. He could see Drecksis in the back thrusting forward and slapping the air back and forth. After the two were decent he demanded to know just what the hell was going on exactly.

“You died,” said Mort. At the beginning of Drecks duhhh he went on. “We all died but I’m sure you noticed the pain. At their nods he went on.

“Strange things were happening, players sick, mana gone, our gear and spells suddenly not working. Try to open your headset display.” They did with no good results. “You can’t, it’s gone. No logoff possible, do not pass go, do not go back to our shit world. The game is now our world, this right now is real life. After a moment of barraging him with questions he held up his hand. They quieted down and he went on. Now see here, he held up a dagger. “So first.” With a quick step he was next to Drecksis who realized too late what was about to happen. Morthius stabbed him in the stomach.

“Oh fuck, Oh God. You bastard. I see the light, wait no I see demons.”

“Pain is real, maxed out like real life. Let me show you.”

Mort had started towards Serion.

“No no no I get it. That’s unnecessary. No stabby.”

Mort seemed saddened by his well response. A little put out Mort stopped yammering and dropped a health potion near Dreck. Serion noticed he was careful to stay at least an arm’s length away from the bleeding knight.

“Alright so second people were sick in game and vomiting, that shouldn’t happen.”

“Third, we are all level 1 again.” Both Serion and Drecksis gave each other a widened gaze. No wonder why those NPCs had cut them down so easily.

“Look at your spell books. Your character screen doesn’t exist anymore so don’t try to bring it up. We all have the basic beginner package again. Skills are reset, abilities too, all are at level one. Core stats seem to be set to starting the game.

Your gear is stashed in your bag, soul bound stuff anyway. Forget the crap you had on when you died. Dreck you still have your demon blade on you, if I remember correctly it scales to you so it’s also weak too.”

“Finally nudity. You couldn’t take away your undergarments before. Otherwise dicks galore, topless lady warriors oh la la. Rape oh so much rape would be going on in this kind of medieval era, sex too. All not allowed before, but possible now. Don’t you see? We are no longer in the game. We have transcended our earthen plane.”

"Alright there master cult leader. Why don’t you stop chugging down the coolade for a moment? For now let’s agree shits fucked up. By that I mean the game is broken and seems to be glitching which is an understatement. The AI should never let this be happening. The game developers should of taken some kind of notice as alarms must be going off everywhere. The NPCs on our own side just cut us down. The knight leader was using a speaking stone receiving orders and had his men kill us. Now NPCs are bad and we’re on the edge of their dam encampment."

“Not so my feeble minded friend. I’m three steps ahead. Having died realizing the implications of our current situation the first thing I did was move camp."

“Where?”

“I told Jerry South so I assume South. You know how he is, I feel sorry for anyone or anything that gets in his way. Before I came back inside he had already plowed through a stable and quite a few tents.”

“Jerry the NPC who we may or may not be able to trust now?”

“Ah I see an oversite on my part.”

“Some genius,” muttered Drecksis moving past. His demon blade in hand at the mere thought of a possible fight.

They walked to over to a common looking door set in the stone wall. Drecksis kicked it open and walked through.

“Genius before beauty,” Serion said motioning towards the door. Mort hesitated for a moment before heading through. New crazy world day one thought Serion and stepped inside.