An obsidian cube in orbit around the game’s world. Its inside carved out into living quarters and a cafeteria. Cozy, with rich rugs, natural woods, and elaborated chandeliers. Where player ended up when their avatar slept down below. They could talk, broker deals, make friends, threaten foes. Different time flow, one hour here for eight hours on the ground. Great food, great booze.

A bar isle in the middle of it in its own mini black cube. One solo girl sat by the huge window. The panel of glass obviously built by magic, twelves feet high, forty feet wide. It gave an amazing view of the randomly generated world. Few clouds, three visible continents, long and narrow. Two mostly green, one half frozen.

The place and all its guess were invulnerable, protected by the game engine. Neutral ground. A safe haven.

Dead players were listed on a blackboard by the window, their name, class and killer traced in faint light. Five after one day although it wasn’t over yet. By the number of players up here, most were still tolling down there, the fatigue debuff would hit soon and they’d more or less all pop up.

Two dead before they reached a class, two crafters, one rogue. Enoch’s name beside the rogue. The rogue’s name beside one of the crafters. Enoch had it right. The four he’d encountered in the forest had found a group dedicated to crafting. Had killed them all.

Enoch went behind the counter of obsidian, poured himself a beer in a glass mug. Took a chair, solid wood, turned it backward and sat by the huge window. At a polite distance from the lone girl. Further than polite if he was honest.

He hated that place. Hated small talk. Best that ever happen here was the occasional Player Quests, but the board was empty now.

He rarely made alliances. Only when others made the first move. He preferred when he knew them.

With all the paranoia in the world, his success rate was around 50%. Either a fruitful alliance, either a knife in the back. Or a bomb who blew out too soon by “accident.” Or a cut rope over a gorge. Or a curse. Or, well, the list went on.

Reflected in the window, three figures approached. An archer, an axe fighter and a pointy hat mage. Here comes the cringe.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

They stopped behind his back, too close. Enoch tried to turn around. The axe girl grabbed his head, squeezed his face to the window. The deep cold of space sept through the material, numbed his face.

“Remember us, loner?” said the archer, “ditched the wooden suit already? Leveled up easy over the corpse of our friend?” His voice high pitched, nasal, whiny.

“Yeah, that’s the point of the game.”

“Don’t start,” said the fighter, straining on his face to no effect. They were all invincible up here in Haven Square.

“Or what?” said Enoch, “want to advertise to the others how disturbed you all are?”

“We just want to let you know we’re on to you,” said the archer, “we won’t rest until you’re dead.”

“Great way to win the game.”

“Actually,” said Choo Choo, “I believe chasing a player without a bounty is one of the worst ways to level up.”

The four humans turned to the purple ball. Silent. A drone buzzed from under the archer shirt, flew up to Choo and hissed at him. The two artifacts chased each other, disappeared upstairs.

“Are we done?” asked Enoch.

“Yeah,” answered the mage. Sleep well, we know where you are.”

“Makes sense. Kill a whole group of crafters then get all butthurt when I kill one of you.” From their expression, he had them.

“Arrrrgg,” the warpainted girl shouted in his face. Enoch thanked the developers for her digital breath.

“You can’t kill one of us and flee like a rat,” said the mage, “we’ll catch you.”

“You’re already dead,” said the archer.

“Arrrrgg,” said the axewoman.

The archer threw Enoch’s beer in his face. The liquid vaporised out of existence. Not a drop touched him. The glass mug shattered on the ground, sank into the stone.

“What part of a safe haven don’t you understand? That’s streamed live. You’ll look like tools,” said Enoch.

They left. He turned to the window, stared at the moon world with its rolling clouds, the sea of stars over the horizon, the large belt of moons and Ooloo, the giant gas planet. He sighed. Player killers, how did they reach the Continental Final with that attitude. They’d throw the whole game just to get back at him?

“Stupidity, killer of fools, bane of humanity,” said a disembodied voice.

Enoch raised an eyebrow, looked around. The girl sat at the far end of the window, still immobile, staring into space.

He adjusted his chair. Said, “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

She turned to him. Overly generic. Average height, brown hair, muted feature, dead expression. She blinked twice and turned back to the window. “And I thought you sounded smart.”

Maybe there was a clever come back here. An astute string of words he could delivered with panache. Maybe. He turned to the window, reached for his beer. Nothing. The minutes ticked by slowly. The chat laughed at him. He concentrated on the transcendental music, lost himself in the rolling clouds.