November 2nd
I woke up.
When I opened my eyes, I was staring up at an intricate art nouveau ceiling made of gold-trimmed marble. Standing around me were five robed figures each wearing harlequin masks. The sorcerer I met when I first logged in wore a similar mask with a frowning face, but the masks of these sorcerers were smiling.
I bolted up into a sitting position, fear gripping my heart. The last thing I remembered was passing out from blood loss. I pressed my hands to my chest to check for wounds. As I did so, I realized that my outfit had changed. Instead of the bloody blue uniform I was expecting, I wore a large black overcoat, black suit pants, and an elaborate white dress shirt with the top five buttons unbuttoned. Most of my chest was exposed. Looking down, I could see roman numerals tattooed just under my right collarbone. I had seen the symbol many times before, so I could read it even upside down. It read: XIII. The roman numeral for the number 13.
“What?” I wondered aloud.
I looked around to fully take in my surroundings. To both of my sides, large lattice-work windows looked out at a stormy night sky. Chandeliers lit with gas lights hung from the vaulted ceiling. The ground was made of polished marble, and the room must have measured about fifty feet by a hundred feet, as far as I could approximate. Apparently, I had awoken in a castle ballroom. Quite auspicious accommodations compared to the stone plinth from a few hours ago.
Before I could fully regain my senses, the five sorcerers around me suddenly knelt to the ground. They bowed their heads low to the ground, as if in prayer. Then, without warning one said in a voice quavering with religious ecstasy, “He has risen! All hail the Thirteenth Dark Apostle!”
I did not know what a Dark Apostle was. I took a moment to put some pieces together. One moment, I was dying. The next, I had woken up in a castle surrounded by cultists who were calling me a Dark Apostle. I had a thought. I had heard some of the NPCs refer to GM as the “God of Machines.” A terrible sinking feeling filled my stomach. I was about to open his mouth to ask a question, but I stopped short. If a mistake had been made, then I didn’t want to tip them off until I was in a good position to run.
“Sorcerers,” I said, trying to speak with authority, “is there anything I should know before I go about my business?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the prostrated figures said, the voice was female. “We were told by the Master to answer any questions you may have. You may speak freely with us, Lord Enzo. The Master taught us of the Old World and that you were born there. We know that the Master created Ferrum for you and your people.”
“Your Master,” I said, trying to control the rising sense of panic in my gut. “Is he GM?”
There was a quiet yelp of fear from one of the sorcerers. “Yes, my Lord,” the woman said fearfully. “Please spare us our lives. The Master was your enemy before, but he is your ally now.”
I stood up from the marble plinth that I had woken up on. It was identical to the stone plinths from the barracks back in Osiris City. The sorcerers scurried away on hands and knees as I stood.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you,” I said to the supplicant sorcerers. My eyes looked out into the middle distance as I formulated my next thought. “What’s a Dark Apostle?”
“A Dark Apostle,” began a different sorcerer, this one was male, “is one of the thirteen most powerful followers of the God of Machines. When an Ascension begins, the Imperials summon Revenants to resist our Deluge. In response, the Master takes fallen Revenants and revives them as Dark Apostles…”
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The sorcerer began his next sentence, but I cut him off. “Stand up, please. I’d rather not speak with someone whose face is pushed against the ground.”
“Yes, my Lord,” the sorcerer said. All of the robed figures shakily rose to their feet. The sorcerer continued. “The Thirteen Dark Apostles each hold safe a piece of the key necessary to enter the Master’s domain. This is what makes the Dark Apostles fundamental to the Master’s plan. If I could serve the…”
The sorcerer continued speaking, but I had stopped paying attention. These sorcerers and GM expected me to be a raid boss. The Revenants would have to kill me and twelve other players to beat the game. I wondered if I could just give the Revenants this “key” the sorcerer was talking about.
I held out my hand, and the sorcerer stopped talking. “What is this key, exactly? Is it physical?”
“Yes, my lord,” the female sorcerer said. “Your key is safely held behind your mark of office.”
“Mark of office?” I asked.
“The, uh, tattoo on your chest,” she said, worry once again reappearing in her voice. She spoke the word “tattoo” as if it were a foreign concept that she was only vaguely aware of.
“So it’s right next to my heart,” I sighed. “Great.”
“It truly…!” one of the other sorcerers began to speak.
“That was sarcasm,” I said. “If you’re gonna be following me around, you’ll have to learn how to pick it up. Also, what’s all of your parts in this? Are you my followers, or will you return to GM’s side after all of this?”
“We are your direct followers, Lord Enzo,” the female sorcerer said. “We live and die by your order.”
“But GM still outranks me, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’ll follow his orders over mine?”
“I suppose so,” the female sorcerer said. “Though that probably won’t happen. The Master spends most of his time in his domain.”
“Okay,” I said. “I suppose that’s all of my questions for now. Wait, no. What should I call you guys?”
“We, like you and the other Dark Apostles, cast off our names when we entered the service of GM!” This was a new voice. It belonged to an older man.
“I’ll figure that out later. For now, take me to the other Dark Apostles. At least they’ll make some sense.”
I left the marble ballroom alongside my entourage of five sorcerers. As we reached the entrance, I saw an ornate end table that carried a small hand-sized device and several small containers. The device was a pistol. More specifically, it was a Beretta M9A3 handgun chambered in nine-millimeter. I grabbed the pistol without much thought and saw a small note tied to the trigger guard. “With love: GM.” I clicked my tongue angrily as I checked the pistol’s magazine. The bullets were double-stacked, and the magazine had been made specially sand-resistant. The gun had a capacity of 17+1, a distinct advantage over the 7+1 offered by the 1911. I knew that the M9A3 was created in 2015, more than a hundred years after the 1911. I looked down at the currently-empty holster and pouches at my belt. I slapped a magazine into the holster, racked the slide, and holstered the Beretta. I then filled the three empty pouches on my belt with three high-capacity 9mm magazines.
We continued our trek wordlessly. We traveled down a long hallway that eventually exited out to a large staircase. We passed by the staircase, briefly dipping down a few steps before re-ascending, before we reached a long stone bridge. The bridge must have been several hundred feet in the air and about fifty feet wide. When on the bridge, I could see a whole separate crenulated structure that was big enough to hold a small village inside of it. The castle was split into five separate structures each attached by a number of bridges or pathways, and one of the other structures expanded inward to fill the space between the structures. From overhead, it must have resembled a pentagram. I stopped for a second to marvel at the beautiful architecture before I shook my head to regain my concentration.
We then reached the other tower-structure. They went down a flight of stairs and entered a large mostly-empty library. Sitting at one of the desks, however, was a man dressed like the Phantom of the Opera.
I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. I ran forward to get a better look at the dark-skinned man who stood before me.
The other Dark Apostle closed the book he was reading and looked up at me, a self-effacing smile appearing on the dark-skinned man’s face.
“They got you too, huh?” the man said.
“Dendrite?” I asked. A moment later, I saw the symbol on Dendrite’s chest: XII.