I didn’t get a good look at my daughter—just a dark shape wrapped up quickly into the Queen’s arms as they left the room, leaving me alone. I didn’t like calling her queen in my head, and decided then and there I was now going to call her The Bitch. Saying Queen just seemed to give her too much power. The Bitch just seemed to fit. Time passed yet again, and I was still feeling numb. It was a feeling I had never had before. It’s like I was in a trance, not thinking of anything. I thought of what Gandalf had said and it resonated with me in this moment.

“Darkness took me. And I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth. But it was not the end. I felt light in me again.”

The ship rocked as it either ran into or was hit by something. The ship rocked again and again, and for the first time I was glad I was contained within this purple prison. But it was like the game could hear my thoughts as the lights flicked off, sending me into darkness as the purple prison turned back to purple Jello, sliding me to the ground. I stumbled as I tried to get to my feet my body weak. It felt like I had been unmoving for a very long time and on top of that I was down stat points from not having the necklace.

I was happy they hadn’t moved my clothes to another location, and I shuffled towards where they were in the dark. It took a while, but I finally had my robes and necklace on. I needed to use this time to get the hell out of this ship.

But can I just leave my daughter? How could I leave her? I had two real kids that were counting on me. But were they more real than her? My internal conflict finally became resolution. It wasn’t the heroic answer, but I had a family already counting on me and I needed to get off this fucked up ship.

I approached the door and was relieved when it opened automatically. The door opened to the hallway, but it was now dimly lit, with faint lights on the ground just barely illuminating the walkway.

Just fucking great. I was going to have trouble enough getting back, now I have to remember in the fucking dark. Then I had a lightbulb moment. I pulled up my map in my interface. This thing really was still pretty useless, but it had a presumably unintended feature where it showed where I had previously been. I couldn’t see much around me, but I could see it was less greyed out where I had already been. I wasn’t sure if this was a new feature or if I had it all along and I didn’t have time to unravel this mystery.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I ran. taking no heed of trying to be stealthy. The ship got hit again and I went flying into the wall, taking a point of damage that I quickly took a pill to recover. I was glad that it had only been one point or that would have been it.

I made it back to the portal room, but the portal was now gone, only the now portal-less Stargate looking device dominating the room. I walked over to the table with the computer but with no power, I couldn’t use it. I hit buttons on the keyboard, wishing upon anything that would take the wish that the computer would come to life. I had no such luck. The ship got hit again, sending me careening into a wall.

I woke as I felt the sensation of falling, opening up my eyes just in time to realize I was heading for the floor. The ship must have lost its gravity generator or whatever you would call such a device. I had felt my body awaken as it went from happily floating to being violently pulled down. I landed on my belly and realized yet again that I had gone unconscious. At this point, I had to have some permanent brain damage. Can’t be healthy to be knocked out, killed, drugged, and transported around over and over again, taking a healing pill after healing pill. Even as I thought about the health implications, I gulped down a healing pill.

Fuck it.

The power was back on. I rushed over to the computer quickly typing in the symbols I remembered seeing. I pressed the large button that looked like an enter key on a standard keyboard, and the device started to spin, locking in the same symbols on the giant rotating circle.

The last symbol locked, and there was a pause before the portal erupted out. I quickly stepped through the portal and found myself on a desert world. All I could see was sand, except for an obelisk right in front of where I appeared. There was literally nothing else but sand hills fading off into the distance. It was hot, beads of sweat quickly forming on my forehead. I had never seen sand hills before with my own eyes, only in pictures, and I was briefly caught up in their beauty.

“Well, that was fucking easy,” I said as I walked down the steps towards the obelisk.

I had been expecting to be chased or stopped by someone, so I decided I shouldn’t wait around and give anyone an opportunity.

I touched the obelisk and was transported back to the void space in front of Tap.