:10/01/2251:

5:00 PM

The notifications crashed into me, rapid fire, as I flew. Losing myself deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, past the chartable paths, and into new, procedurally generated corridors. I knew it was a bad idea to read as I flew, but I couldn't help myself as my eyes fixated on the text flashing into my right eye.

WORLD STATUS UPDATE

Undercity Faction has been removed from the game.

Players with standing faction points with Undercity will find that these points have been converted to 'Chaos' Faction on 1:1 basis.

Select player bound items specific to Undercity will be converted to 'Artifact' quality and will receive new abilities: ETA 5 Minutes.

Achievement Unlocked!

Undercity's Last Guardian (Unique)

Fought with Undercity Forces as the city fell and survived.

Reputation raised with Chaos from: CITIZEN to: CHAMPION

Reputation raised with Angmar from: DISTASTE to: TOLERATED

Reputation lost with Anthera from: ENEMY to: HUNTED

Reputation lost with Church of Light from: NEUTRAL to: CORRUPT

Special:

+500 Fame

Congratulations: Daily Employee Project Complete

Performance evaluation: S Grade

Reward:  "Undercity Commoner" garments guaranteed quality upgrade from: TRASH to: ARTIFACT

I blinked, cheering, though the actual sound of my voice was converted immediately into the harsh cawing of the crow. While reputation was easily attainable by achievements and, I had learned, by successful completion of daily assignments, fame was another matter entirely. Fame was only sparingly given for participation in world events, and more importantly, fame would allow me to unlock new abilities with higher level Druid trainers. Add to that the fact that I had a guaranteed upgrade for 'Artifact' level clothes, on a garment that filled two slots (chest and legs) as opposed to just one was absolutely out of this world. 'Artifact' level quality was on par with 'Legendary' items, the top tier in the game, and often came with additional unique powers or abilities.

It was an absolutely unreal reward, and I started to think that Alley had a change of heart, to have enabled such a huge bonus for us, when the next set of prompts appeared.

EMPLOYEE NOTIFICATION:

Alley Bonowitz has transferred to R&D Department

Final Instruction Mandates (FIM) initiated by Supervisor: Alley Bonowitz shall now be enacted. 

Employees under Supervisor: Alley Bonowitz hereby formally reassigned to: DDO Corporate AI Supercomputer (DOCA)

Interns under Supervisor: Alley Bonowitz then formally terminated. 

FIM Processing...

I stared at it... and stared at it. The last bit of text there burning its way into my brain, 'Interns under Supervisor: Alley Bonowitz then formally terminated." It didn't make sense, I didn't want it to make sense. Not only was I losing the supervisor I was only starting to know, losing my crew, my friends, but in one fell swoop of four lines of text, I had also lost my job.

It was impossible, it couldn't have been real. And yet, no matter how long I stared at the unobtrusive, ordinary black letters, 'terminated', the more it began to sink in that they weren't about to change.

I was distracted, alone in the dark, skirting the tops of unexplored, untested corridors at the speed of flight. And it should come as no surprise then that, before I had managed to drag my eyes away from those little glowing words, my body came to an abrupt and sudden halt.

My wings fluttered, trying to catch the air, even as I felt myself stop. Even as I felt myself start to bounce back and forth against sticky, almost invisible cords. I struggled, I twisted, but no matter how much I tried, I found that I became more and more deeply lodged between the folds of silent, unbreakable webs.

Glancing back and forth, desperately, I struggled to calm my racing heart, to get my thoughts straight. And though it was sudden, though it was horrifying, I did not see any man-eating spiders racing to devour their newest acquisition. So the fear slowly faded, giving way to waves of soul-crushing despair, my heart slowing not with calm, but with resignation. And, shrugging my little avian shoulders, I went ahead and scrolled on to the next notification with my eye.

EMPLOYEE NOTIFICATION

Assignment Complete

Number of Oranges sold: 8

Number of Orphans saved: 5

Battle Performance: A Rank

Overall Performance Evaluation: S Rank

Reward:  Employment Contract

EMPLOYEE NOTIFICATION

Supervisor: Alley Bonowitz would like to promote you from: Intern to: Employee

Do you accept? Y/N

YES, I thought desperately, as the little words in the status screen once again turned my life upside down. Would this grandfather in before my termination was complete, I wondered? Was this Alley's way of making my employment contingent on my performance in her task? I reached out, desperately to accept... and then I realized. I was twisted impossibly tight in the web of some monster, with no fingers to click the 'accept', with no mouth even to give verbal agreement. I could only look helplessly at my salvation, waiting as the seconds ticked by until the creature who had gestated the web came buy and buried me in Death Notifications.

Would I still be able to accept from the Lobby, if I was killed? Would it be an option in the log, or just a grayed-out text file proving that I was once given the choice and failed to accept it? It could really go either way, I knew, depending on how it was coded, and, worse, if my firing took effect when I entered the lobby the whole thing would almost definitely error out instead of being grandfathered into my employment contract.

Desperately, I shifted to Nymph form, to regain my fingers and my voice, but the rapid expansion of my body served not to tear free the binding webbing, but rather to twist me up tighter in its impossibly strong embrace. Layer upon layer of webs encased my hands and wings as I grew, wrapping over my face and being sucked into my mouth as I attempted to take a breath. And worse, my struggles weren't the only movement that I was now feeling along the cords of the web now holding me.

The struggling had, undoubtedly, finally drawn the attention of the web's mistress, and now, in my larger, more enwrapped form, I could definitely see the shadow of... something... moving towards me.

"Well then, it looks like we're in a pickle here." Came the soft trill of my own voice inside of my head. "I really think we should accept, don't you?"

Since the first day I had heard the strange, disconcerting voice in my ears, never once had I been happier for the intrusion of Other Me. I struggled desperately, to nod my head, to whisper a 'Yes', but managed little more than to shake the fine strands of webbing even more.

The creature, finally, had come close enough for me to make out it's shape. It was huge, three feet of carapace with another four feet of legs spread out to either side. And, as it approached, I found myself staring into a pair of hungry, human eyes, set deep in the human face that sprouted from where the thing's head should have been.

It twisted its head a full 180 degrees as it looked at me, smiling with a mirthless, inhuman grin, and bearing a set of dripping, five-inch fangs from the mouth. My thin attempts to scream, my desperate twists of my body and wings, only buried myself deeper in my prison... and yet I felt myself somehow powerless to stop.

As the segmented, arachnid body reared back, legs tensing even as the mouth opened impossibly wide, I once again heard the voice, "You know what? Screw this. I'm not waiting to see how this plays out." And as the fangs buried themselves deep into my pink flesh, as impossible waves of agony tore through me as though I was being melted from within, a final update flashed before my eyes even as my world went dark.

CONGRATULATIONS

You have accepted an employment contract with Dragon's Dagger Online!

Authorized by: Alley Bonowitz.

Payment Contract accepted:  Royalty Matching (Not to exceed 10,000 credits per month)

Position changed from: INTERN to: METAPLOT AGENT (CHAOS)

Pregenerated instructions and welcome package:  Forwarded to Personal Mailbox

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

20 piercing Damage received from Arachnia bite.

20 poison Damage received from Arachnia Poison (Ongoing)

HP: 0/40

Crippling Injury: Organs 

100% HP removed in a single blow!

CON:  Saving against death

Failed.

:10/01/2251:

5:20 PM

As I materialized in the Employee Lobby I heard the sound of someone screaming and realized that it was me.

It took several minutes for me to calm down, drawing the attention of a number of sullen employees waiting in the lobby - to include Steve, Olga, and Blinky. Blinky and, strangely, Olga had almost immediately rushed to my side, and I think I still would have been standing there screaming an hour later if not for their warm hands holding me up, guiding me to a chair, remaining there with me.

Olga took to brushing her fingers through my hair, whispering to me soothing sounds and stroking my head as if I were a child. Where Blink simply kept a grip on my hand, holding tight as if he knew that his touch was the steady foundation upon which I rebuilt my sanity. "There now, there now child. You're safe. You're safe," Olga kept repeating in my ear, patient, and kind as my mind began to quiet.

"Holy shit," I whispered, finally, glancing back and forth between my comrades... my former comrades, rather. "Holy mother fucking shit what the fuck was that shit..."

Blinky's voice sounded calm, deep and soothing to my panicked ears, "Our faction was eliminated through an in-game event. Alley, being our leader, the Regent of Undercity, no longer had a position to fill and was transferred out of our department. You died, we all died, but we didn't actually lose our faction." His eyes looked at me, even as his fingers clung warmly to mine, "We lost our city, we lost our status as a world power in the current metaplot, and we lost something of our cohesion when we lost Alley. But we still have a faction, which means we're still in the game. And we can still work together, I'll be it in a somewhat different capacity."

The cool logic of his words, of his clinical description of the game as just a game, just a string of events and story that wove together just like it always had, began to break through to me. My breathing started to calm and I felt my grip loosening around his fingers as he continued, "I'm actually really happy to see that you made it. Unsupervised factions aren't allowed interns, after all. But then I guess I shouldn't have doubted that Alley would have found a way to fix things even after she was gone." He risked a small smirk and nudged me with his arm, "though don't think this changes anything. You're still the noob in our group. Don't think just because you got promoted and Lilith's Crew is dissolved that you're all hot stuff now."

Finally, glancing between the two of them, my unlikely, impossible friends (We... were friends now, weren't we? There was a bond there that I hadn't felt before, hadn't realized before, but yet I couldn't seem to deny the reality), I finally managed to crack a half-hearted smile. "Ya well," I muttered, "Don't assume I'm going to start shining your boots or anything."

He coughed, "You say boots... what about one boot? Or maybe even a sandal, really, I'm not picky."

Olga punched him firmly in the shoulder, scowling, but the tension seemed to finally break and we all ended up laughing together, there in the Lobby. 

"So, Blink, this is really it? No more Undercity, or Alley, or Lillith's Crew? It's all gone?"

"Ya, kid," he sighed. "It's really gone. And, as a faction, I think 'Chaos' is meant to just be some Anarchistic group of has-beens meant to give the light-siders someone to hunt. Though, when you think about it, they couldn't get rid of us. Not really. The world would be really boring of there weren't any bad guys for the holy-rollers to fight."

"Ya, I guess. Though it doesn't seem very dramatic this way," I screwed up my nose, still not fully accepting that the would I had grown up watching, had grown up longing for, had suddenly become so different before I'd even had a real chance to experience it.

"Meh, I'm sure something new will rise up sooner or later," Olga joined in, the harsh notes of her voice softened until they sounded almost Motherly. "It might be us, who knows? We still have a faction. And we still have the most hardcore P-Kers that this world has ever known."

Blinky raised an eyebrow at her, "Really? I kind of figured players like you and Belgorath would head back to Galdenheim, or maybe even contract over to the Orcs in Angmar? You do have to admit, our faction is pretty broken at this point."

Olga grinned a toothy, fierce thing as she beamed down at me, "Ohhh no. After the babe here's little speech the other day? I wouldn't even dream of it." She squeezed my shoulder with her hand, "Mouthing off like that, in front of Alley no less? Waxing on and on about what an inspiration we were and all? No, no. I wouldn't leave now if they paid me. And I have a feeling that I'm not the only one here who feels that way."

Blinky shook his head, "Your funeral. Alley was Wiley. More Wiley, I think, than we had given her credit for, what with the whole Artifact upgrade stick. But I very much doubt that even she could have done much to turn this around. No matter how much she secretly loved our faction."

Olga huffed, "Loved our faction? If you say so, though I had a feeling most days that she would have liked nothin' more than to tie us up and leave us for sharks. She was always on my case for something or other."

Blinky simply smiled, leaning over somewhat conspiringly, "Ya? And yet would any other boss would have put up with the stunts that we pulled? We never even got suspended, when you think about it. Not a day. Hell, I think even Peeceval only got written up once over the last five years. Once."

Sputtering, Olga blinked at him slowly. "I... guess. When I think about it. And I suppose I was in Galdenheim for less than a month before I was involuntarily transferred here. With the shit that I pulled there, I was surprised they kept me on at all, truth be told."

Nodding, solemnly, "I know for a fact she pulled some strings for Belgorath after the whole spaghetti incident of his. Even Angmar wanted to wash their hands of him. But, boom, his suspension ends and suddenly he's right here with us, carrying on as if nothing had even happened."

Olga frowned, looking back at him, and continued on. Reminiscing and going on as if the two of them were memorializing their fallen general. And, I suppose, that's exactly what they were doing. But my heart started to tug as I found myself more and more outside of the conversation. There was a jealousy there if I'm being honest with myself, that started to seep into my stomach and drag me out from the security that I had started to feel in their hands. It was jealousy, yes, but from that day to my last, I could never have told you exactly which of them I was jealous of. 

Instead, as they fell deeper and deeper into the well of their remembrances, I slowly extradited myself from their hands and edged away. Quietly exiting my seat and taking a few steps back so that I could work the glowing bars of my interface.

:10/01/2251:

6:05 PM

I materialized into my Axis Room with an explosion of light and pixels, finally finding the peace I needed to think about the day's events. Habitually, I smiled and waved, "Hi, Matti!" as I entered the room. But she still stood there in the corner, unmoving and inanimate, as she had for these last several months. The nutrients continued to be fed into my system, and the lights had stayed on in Meatspace, so I knew she couldn't have left me entirely. And yet there she stood, open-eyed and slack-jawed, as my words were met with the chill of silence. 

"Careful," I bantered at her half-heartedly. "Your face is going to get stuck that way." And yet, for the hundredth time, the words fell on naught but digital air. And I soon, yet again gave up the chase and turned to the panels of the room's interface.

 "Open, Mail," I used the voice commands, as was my new custom. I took comfort from it as the Mail icon was selected and my unread letters appeared in front of me. On some level, I felt, she had to have heard me. Who else could be responding to the voice commands and utilizing my system?

Toward the top, over the handful of items that had somehow slipped past my spam filters, yet under the submissions from the 'fans' that I hadn't yet gotten around to blocking, I found what I was looking for. There, in simple, unassuming script, was the Letter.

"Open: Forward, Welcome Magpie."

And with that, the lines of the title expanded into the last letter I would ever read from my former Supervisor, Alley Bonowitz.

Magpie,

Forgive the informality of this letter. I should be congratulating you on passing your trial and welcoming you to DDO. And I do, from the bottom of my heart, congratulate you. But that's not what I want to say. Not now.

If you are reading this, it means that not only did you pass your trial assignment with flying colors and have received the contract that I had left in your name, but that our beloved Undercity is no more. For me, a week has passed since that meeting, the one where your innocent hero-worship and optimism took my agenda, chewed it up, and spit it back out again in my face. Though, I know that, for you, it will have been much longer - weeks or months longer, I couldn't possibly know. 

I have to confess that yes, at first I was angry. At first, I was furious with you for ruining my carefully planned speech. I blamed you, perhaps, even as I watched our people, our friends, sink right back into their own habits. Fiddling even as I could see that Rome was already burning around us. And yes, at first my assignment to you was meant to be a punishment, an impossible task to drive you right back out the door with your tail between your legs. I even, I will now admit, tuned into your streams every day just to watch as the horrible assignment in Undercity's worst possible slum ate away at your fragile spirit. A last, I'll be it futile, joke for a last, futile cause.

But then the impossible happened. The more I watched, the more I realized, you weren't suffering. In fact, quite the opposite, you seemed to be thriving more and more with every passing day. And, yesterday, even as I received the reports of McBeal's amassing armies, I found myself watching, not the quest updates and alliance notifications on my notepads, no - I, instead found myself watching you.

I saw you selling your first Orange. It was a shriveled, horrible looking thing, but even still you found some guardsman with more copper than sense. And as he handed you your first copper coin, I was watching live to see how you smiled.

I want you to know that I was right there with you, glued to the screen, as you gave that copper to the Pickpocket you had cornered just the week before. I was there with you as your shift ended, IA awarding you the sleeping bag and bedroll, and I saw you copy the key to your house using your own credits.

And I shall never forget, not now nor on my dying day, what it was to watch you lead the child into your room and tell him that he never need sleep in the streets and gutters again. 

It's corny, I know. Stupid little things that stand out to a stupid, stubborn old lady. And I am old, Magpie. Older, even, than you could possibly have guessed. But what I want you to know is that what you did, it mattered to me. This world matters to me. And these people, our people, they matter to me too. 

And as I go back and watch the little, noobling speech you gave in our conference, I find that I am reminded of all the things that I too felt when I started to work on this project. The hope, the ambition, and even the slightly twisted lust for violence and defiance and winning, it all brings back memories that I had become too busy, too 'important' to remember.

So, even now, as I do what needs to be done. As I secure the deals and make the concessions required of me in order to secure our legacy, still I have your little, ignorant diatribe playing on a loop behind me. And while I know that it will likely come to naught, that chances are you will fail the impossibly high criteria that I have, knowingly, set against you, and you will never even receive this letter... if you are here, now, reading these words then it means that I was wrong. It means that you have kept that little Orphan boy, Tom? Was it? safe through the final siege and sacking of our city. It means that you have fought in that battle, killed some number of our aggressors, and yet somehow survived the battle. And it means that, even with the Undercity gone, with your faction dead or on the ropes, even still you have chosen not to move on - not to give up on this little game of ours and find a more reasonable employment in sewage or in designing environmental converters. Instead, you have (stupidly, I would say) decided to tie your fate to this fantasy of ours and accepted my final offer of employment. 

And, if you are reading these words, then I think you should know that after the battle was over - after I fell in battle to our inevitable fate at the hands of the Bitch-Queen McBeal, I was there with you. Watching your stream and cheering or screaming there right along with you. And, in the same way that you stupidly declared we were your heros, Olga and Peeceval and Bel, so too now I will say for the record that I have a new hero too.

You are my hero, Magpie. And I will be there with you, watching your feed and sharing your triumphs and your tears, for so long as you continue to stream this wonderful little world of ours.

But... anyway, I am ranting. And there is so much more that I want to tell you. That this world is darker than you could possibly imagine - not the game, the real, honest to god meatspace that we had abandoned so long ago. I know that Gray sent you a copy of that little pet project of his, and I'll tell you it was a bitch to cover it up when you activated it like some five credit aimbot and plunged into the game. I even know, I'm sad to say, what it is that Gray's program does, and what Gray was working on so long ago, before his forcible retirement.

Attached are two files. One, an encryption program that will cover your tracks now that I am no longer there to protect you. And the second... well the second will be another letter, off the record, that I will need you to destroy after you have read it. 

Do. Not. Open the letter without the encryption enabled, or it'll be both of our asses that they send to the recycler. And don't leave the encryption running for too long, or the Firewall will detect the subterfuge.

In the name of the Undercity, which we lived in together for a brief moment in time,

Your biggest fan,

Alley B.

I was crying by the time I finished. It was corny as she said, but somehow it was more than I could even have dreamed. It filled a part of me, for a moment, that I hadn't even realized was broken. And it was with tears in my eyes and a solemn heart that I fulfilled the rest of her instructions.

I downloaded the encryption and ran it before I even attempted to download the second letter. It made the world jump, once solid objects fading in and out of existence. It seemed like the world around me was trying to decide whether it was real, or whether it actually should look like solid, blocky pixels. But even still, it was obvious that it was running, and more so that Alley's little program was working. 

And so, with a light heart and a spring in my step, I opened the letter that would shatter my world forever.