I continued walking through the Castle with my hands in my pockets. As I walked for five minutes without seeing a single person, I was struck with just how empty it felt. All of this space, all of this magnificent architecture, and there was basically no one to witness it.

Once I had left the East Gate and began walking on the bridge heading toward the South Gate, I finally saw the space that occupied the area between the keeps. Most of the central area within the pentagonal structure of the outer keeps was occupied by the absolutely gargantuan structure of the Central Keep. Between any two keeps was several hundred feet of empty space. Every individual keep was built on its own small mountain, and the topography between the keeps dipped hundreds of feet to the jagged rocks below. I figured that not even a Dark Apostle could reasonably climb back up if he fell off one of the precarious bridges between the keeps. I peered over the edge of the bridge that I was walking on and saw that there was nothing but empty air below me for almost a thousand feet. I had completely missed this fact when I had walked across the bridges last night. The bridges were so well illuminated that it had completely blinded me to the setting as a whole.

About half-way across the bridge was a group of people. I briefly wondered who would voluntarily hang out on the edge of such an intimidating precipice. I squinted my eyes, and my enhanced vision allowed me to make out the figures. Poldra and her five hooded sorcerers were standing there, completely stationary. The sorcerers were holding their robes in place against the wind that flowed through the cavernous void that partitioned the keeps while Poldra leaned heavily against the baroque filigree stonework that served as the bridge’s handrails. She held something in one hand perched over the precipice, but not even I could see what it was at that distance.

I reached the small group of people in less than a minute. As I got closer, I saw that Poldra was holding an unlit cigarette in her hand. I also saw that she had changed out of her Dark Apostle uniform and into more casual clothes. She wore a white long-sleeve blouse, a turquoise skirt, and a headband of the same color. Under her skirt, she wore thick tights that reached down to the white running shoes she wore. Her hair was no longer in the braid she had worn during the first meeting of the Dark Apostles and the incursion on Osiris City. A few of the buttons on her blouse were undone, and I could occasionally get a glimpse of the dark tattoo on her chest as her collar flapped in the breeze. Her outfit was a lot more girly than I would have expected from Dark Apostles in general and her specifically.

“‘Sup,” Poldra said with a wave as she turned to me.

“Hey,” I responded. “I see you’re out of uniform.”

“Same to you. What are you, Canadian?”

“No,” I chuckled, “I’m just from the Midwest.”

“Hmm,” she grunted. “Do they wear a lot of flannel in the Midwest?”

“I did. This is what I was wearing when I logged in.”

“Looks comfortable.”

“That’s the idea.”

Poldra grunted and tossed her unlit cigarette into the chasm beneath us. There was sadness and annoyance in her expression.

With her eyes temporarily fixed on the inter-keep canyon, my eyes flashed yellow, and I activated Identify.

Character Sheet

Name P0ldra Level 100 Blood Points 250/250 Mana Points 690/690 Race Dark Apostle Fortitude 25 Strength 30 Agility 35 Wisdom 45

Attribute Modifier: Enhanced Mana Reserve (500)

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“You tryin’ to quit?” I asked as my eyes automatically tracked the white form of the cigarette on its descent.

“Not really. It’s just that I haven’t had a craving for cigarettes ever since I became a Dark Apostle.” Poldra spoke angrily as she said this.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked, confused at her apparent anger.

“It just means that Melkior wasn’t completely right. Something is different about us. Somehow, GM removed the part of my mind that craves cigarettes. Either that or he didn’t know how to convert addiction over to an engram. It makes me wonder, what else is different about us?”

I shrugged my shoulders wordlessly. I didn’t tell Poldra this, but I was thinking about the futility of that train of thought. I had spent my fair share of time over the past ten hours thinking about the nature of our existence, and I had come to the conclusion that introspection was ultimately a futile gesture. What was done was done. We wouldn’t change anything by agonizing over it.

“People change every day,” I said, perhaps insensitively. “I’m a different person than I was yesterday, but I don’t feel that different. Isn’t that enough?”

Poldra scoffed. “Maybe. Anyway, where are your sorcerers?”

I looked around dramatically as if I had just noticed their absence myself. “I don’t know. I told one of my sorcerers the truth about Earth last night. They might be avoiding me because of that.”

“You…!?” Poldra began to speak in indignant surprise, but she stopped herself and looked over at her sorcerers. “Let’s keep walking so that we can get out of their earshot,” she whispered to me.

Poldra and I started walking once more across the bridge toward the South Keep. Once we had entered the interior structure of the keep and the sorcerers had fallen back a few dozen feet, Poldra started talking again, “You told them the truth!? Are you crazy!?”

“There are thirteen of us,” I started to defend myself in a hushed tone. “It was only a matter of time before they figured it out. Plus, the one I told basically already knew everything.”

“What do they know?” Poldra asked.

“They know,” I turned back to the sorcerers as I spoke, “that we’re just people from a planet called ‘Earth.’ They know that Earth has advanced technology, but no magic. I just… filled in the blanks from there.”

“Such as…?”

“That,” I sighed, realizing my potential oversight, “Ferrum is just a simulation created on Earth for the purpose of entertainment.”

“You told them that this is a video game? Why?”

“I didn’t want to lie to her.” It was only after the sentence left my mouth that I realized that I had given too much away.

“Oh, her.” Poldra’s tone took on an air of playful mockery. “Now I get it. Men are so predictable. You’re aware that GM put her there in order to manipulate her, right?”

We started walking up a marble staircase as we spoke. Due to the differences in elevation between the keeps, you would have to walk up a few flights of stairs when walking toward the Central Keep.

“I am aware,” I sighed. “He’s in our heads. He knows exactly what to do in order to make us loyal. Apparently, my weakness is a pretty face.”