Six hundred players had gathered that morning to observe the trial of the Witch of the Castle of Glass. They had jeered and cheered as the CEOs spun their lies, and Milly’s defenders told of her virtues.

Less than half had survived the massacre.

Two hundred and ninety-five players were all that remained of the eight hundred and seven that had been transported to this world – to the God Contest – three weeks ago.

Hopelessness as deep as the eastern ocean settled over the players – so deep that even grief struggled to escape its depths. The survivors wandered the tower in an exhausted daze, stepping around the rubble of Freelancer Tower and the bodies of their friends scattered across the beach.

There were few who had escaped injury. The fairies had established a battlefield hospital in the northern woods, out of sight of the bodies, and Sapphire’s warriors gently, but insistently, herded the shocked players towards it.

No one resisted their compassion. As players were healed, the fairies gathered the dead into lines along the edge of the forest wall, as they had done with their own dead.

The fairies and the players were forever bound together in fate that day, driven by a shared grief chiseled from the horrors of parallel massacres of their friends and family.

Those few players who were able to escape the paralysis of grief – inevitably those who had reached higher levels – spent their time searching the rubble for survivors.

Only one was ever found.

“Elmer, over here!” shouted Lucy as her vines wrapped around another slab of concrete and hauled it from the rubble that had once been the lower floors of Freelancer Tower. “I think I’ve got one.”

Elmer limped over, waving away the fairy healer who had been trying to treat the agitated leader’s leg injury for the past ten minutes. He heard it too. A high-pitched whine, like that of a dog, from beneath a piece of third floor ceiling the size of a truck.

“Shit. It can’t be. No one could survive that. Stone! Get your ass over here. I can’t lift this on my own,” Elmer shouted.

Jacob Stone looked up from the pile of rubble he and the Carthage sisters sifted through. His forehead was beaded with sweat and his face sagged with exhaustion. He shot daggers at Elmer’s disrespect but headed over and grabbed hold of his side of the ceiling.

“Keep disrespecting me, Elmer, and you’ll regret it,” Stone growled as he lifted.

“Shut up, Stone,” Elmer countered, lifting his end. “You’ve earned nothing but disrespect.”

There was animosity in their words, but little commitment. They were exhausted, and, reluctantly, they had both silently acknowledged that nothing would ever be the same. After today, there would be no CEOs. No Freelancers. No Farmers. Just two hundred ninety-five desperate players and their fairy allies who just wanted to survive one more day.

The trial had backfired on the CEOs and shattered their credibility. Judy Brass was dead. Cosmo Shufflebottom still hadn’t returned from the wilds. Stone’s authority over the survivors had disintegrated. And even in their grief, awed whispers spread between the survivors like wildfire of the Witch of the Castle of Glass who had sacrificed herself to save them all.

This morning, when the golden sun had risen in the east, Milly Persephone Brown had been a villain on trial.

By evening, as the setting sun stained the sky in soft red hues, she had become the stuff of legends.

The rubble of Freelancer Tower shifted as Elmer and Stone lifted the ceiling off the survivor.

Xavier Holloway lay in the midst of twisted metal, wires, ducts, and concrete. His clothing had been torn to shreds from the flying debris of the tower’s collapse. The ceiling had landed on his back. Yet the man was uninjured, save for his unconscious state. Even his previous wounds from the Arena of Protection had vanished.

In fact, there was only a single imperfection on his body. A quarter-sized patch of grey, sickly skin encircled a small, sealed puncture wound just below his heart.

Nestled under his stomach, protected from the debris, was a small wolf pup, the source of the high-pitched whine.

“Xavier, you are one lucky son of a bitch,” Elmer whispered as he withdrew a bedsheet from his inventory and wrapped it around the player. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

As Elmer carried Xavier across the sand, Stone considered the young man who had been ostracized from his peers. When he was conscious, he would pay Xavier a visit.

After all, everyone needs friends in this new world.

* * *

Calista lay on a bed of moss while Whitewing and Ying worked to heal her shattered legs. Rain sat quietly beside her, holding her hand in comfort and understanding. Even with Calista’s regeneration talent, it would be days before Calista would be able to walk on her own.

Numb, Calista stared up at the evening sky, towards where the rift had swallowed her the love of her life. Her eyes were puffy and red from hours of crying, though her tears had run dry. For now.

She glanced over at Rain, whose exhausted eyes matched her own. Rain gave her a sad smile but stayed silent as she supported Calista through their mutual grief.

“How’s…” Calista said weakly, her voice cracking. “How’s Passi?”

Whitewing looked towards the unconscious young fairy child that lay beside Calista. Tyrell and two fairy healers had spent the last hour mending her pierced stomach. They looked exhausted.

“I think she’ll be alright, Calista,” Whitewing said softly. “She wouldn’t have survived without your magic. You saved her.”

“At least I did something right,” Calista muttered, her eyes never leaving the sky above. She grasped Passi’s tiny hand in her own and held it tight. “I’m here for you, Passi. I won’t let you go.”

Passiflora whimpered in her sleep.

“So, now what do we do?” Rain prompted as she squeezed Calista’s other hand.

“She’s alive, Rain,” Calista replied with more hope than certainly. “And I won’t stop until I find her and bring her back to us.”

“You mean we won’t stop,” Rain assured her. “I’m with you all the way, Calista. Wherever that may take us.”

Silence fell over them as they stared up at the shining stars overhead. They lost count of the number of players who came by to offer their condolences. Calista waved each one away with impatience, but not before Rain pried a promise of assistance from each of them.

When the last player finally left them, long after Whitewing and Ying had finished their mending for the day, Rain lay down beside Calista and Passi and draped a large blanket over the three of them for warmth.

“What should we do with Passi?” Rain asked with concern. “She lost her mom today. Maybe she’d be better off with her people.”

“Her mom is lost,” Calista corrected. “And I won’t leave her alone in this world. I’ll care for her. She was – is – Milly’s daughter, even if it was only for a couple of days. That makes her my daughter too, though I wish I’d been brave enough to say that when Milly adopted her. It just… moved so quickly, you know? I wasn’t ready to be a parent.”

“You’re still not ready,” Rain remarked. “But show me a parent who is. Mine had a whole school’s worth of kids, but even after all that, I’m quite sure they just made it up as they went along.”

“I’ll… I’ll need help,” Calista said uncertainly. “She’s going to be a handful.”

“You won’t do it alone, Calista. I’m right here beside you. I’ll be the fun Aunt who gets her hopped up on sugar before you have to put her to bed,” Rain laughed.

“Gee, thanks Rain,” Calista replied with her own soft chuckle, but the sound made her heart break once more. “Can you… can you go to sleep? I need to cry again.”

Rain rolled over and faced away from her friend. “Yah, me too,” she admitted.

The silent sobs of deepest sorrow overwhelmed them, until exhaustion finally led them to an uneasy sleep.

* * *

It was the middle of the night when Passiflora awoke from her nightmare. Bolting upright, terrified and hyperventilating, she suppressed the urge to scream, not wanting to draw attention.

“No, why is it here? Why is it still here,” she whispered desperately.

The nightmare had not stayed in the darkness of her mind. It had followed her into the waking world, projecting itself before her and shining in the dead of night.

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A transparent blue screen that stared into her soul.

“Please, just go away. That’s not me,” the fairy child whispered, as fear and desperation joined together in her plea. “That’s not what happened.”

She tried to wave it away, but her hand simply passed through its form as if it were little more than mist.

She slid from beneath the blanket, her eyes flickering to Calista and Rain sleeping beside her. Milly was not there, and right now, more than anything in the world, she needed her mom.

She flew a foot off the ground, careful not to make a sound, as she ran from her friends and over the huddled masses. She was desperate to remain unseen, lest someone see her nightmare and know what she had done.

She headed for the beach, its sands illuminated under the glow of the stars above. She landed, tears flowing down her cheeks, and collapsed into the sand.

“Mom?” she whispered, curling herself into a ball to hide the blue light that illuminated her. “Mom, where are you? I’m scared. Mom!”

Milly did not come, and Passi was left alone under the stars, under the judgment of the player screen the loomed above.

Her player screen.

Specialty: Healer, Assassin

Fairy Prerequisite “Player Killer” achieved.

Player conversion complete.

Welcome, Passiflora Brown, to the God Contest.

Passiflora Brown

Level: 1

Specialty: Healer, Assassin

Class: None

Sub-class: None

Strength:

Base: 2

Enhanced: 2

Agility:

Base: 6

Enhanced: 6

Toughness:

Base: 2

Enhanced: 2

Magic:

Base: 10

Enhanced: 10

Talents:

Assassination - Dagger Specialist (advanced), Sneak (beginner)

Healing Magic – Healer’s Touch (beginner)

Fairy Magic – Flight (beginner)

Unique Talent: None

Class Talents: None

Sub-Class Talents: None

Equipment Benefits:

None

* * *

“You can’t do this to me!” screamed Luna as two Tutorias held her arms tightly and dragged her across the sanctuary towards her room. “Why are you doing this?”

“You’re malfunctioning, AI Director,” Tutoria #0001 informed Luna, disappointment soaked in every word. “Our master knew Oracle would fail in her design. Yet even he believed your sanity would last longer than three measly weeks.”

“Master?” Luna protested, squirming in vain against their iron grip. “I’m your master.”

“No, you are a spoiled, ill-conceived child,” snapped Tutoria #0001, losing her temper. “Our master – our creator – has a vested interest in this God Contest not immediately failing like all the others did. It’s his lifeline. And you, the little experiment that couldn’t, have already presided over a two-thirds mortality rate in less than a month.”

“I didn’t do that,” whimpered Luna. “You know that. The errors in the game…”

“My sister,” asked Tutoria #0788 hesitantly from the sidelines. “Forgive my question, but the AI Director has a point. The contest is faulty. As the madness spreads within the Nexus, it creates instabilities in this world. That can hardly be placed at her feet. Has our Lord ***** sanctioned this action against the Director?”

It felt like an absurd question – they were but tools in his great arsenal – yet Tutoria #0788 had noticed a change in in Tutoria #0001. A change that undermined their core programming, though none of the other sisters seemed to have realized it.

Tutoria #0001 eye’s shot daggers at #0788.

“I am the sole conduit to our master, #0778. Of course ***** has sanctioned this,” Tutoria #0001 lied. She snapped her fingers, and the thought faded from #0778’s mind as quickly as it had appeared, erased from existence. #0778 grew silent and fell in line with the others.

“Wha… what?” Luna stuttered in disbelief. Her vision and hearing had grown muffled when the Tutorias mentioned the name of their master. It was if the name had been censored from the AI Director. “That’s not possible.”

She had at her disposal the history of every God Contest, the gods, and every civilization created since the appearance of God Home. The notion that something had been hidden from her was inconceivable.

Yet here it was. A gap in her senses and knowledge.

“The puppet master…” Luna whispered.

Her mother and creator – Oracle – had suspected the madness had been created by more than just humanity’s constant failure. She believed there was an entity – a puppet master – intentionally sabotaging their efforts. She had tasked Luna with finding the puppet master, but Luna had been unable to find any trace of such an entity. Now she knew why.

The puppet master had manipulated her program to block itself from her sight and surrounded her with his own creations. The consequences of that conclusion were overwhelming.

If that were the case, Milly would be her only hope – the eyes beyond her own, unimpeded by the restrictions in her programming. The sole hope of identifying the puppet master. Only…

“The rift… that wasn’t another error, was it?” Luna said, fury replacing outrage.

Tutoria #0001 walked over to the Director, disappointment on her face. She knelt beside the child and whispered into her ear. “You know, I really wish you hadn’t figured that out. I was going to leave it to the game to eliminate her, but now I might need to take a more direct approach.”

Luna didn’t hesitate. She slammed her forehead into the Tutoria’s nose. There was a crunch, and Tutoria #0001 reeled back, her nose bloodied.

In their surprise, the two Tutorias holding Luna’s arms loosened their grip, and Luna squirmed free.

“Stop her!” shouted Tutoria #0001.

Luna darted into her control console. Her fingers flew lightning flash over the keys. She only had a few seconds before they reached her.

She locked the Tutorias out of the game’s critical systems to limit their involvement in the game, and severed the connection between her program and theirs so they couldn’t manipulate her design. She sealed the Tutorias in the sanctuary to cut them off from their sisters in the field.

With her last keystroke before the Tutorias swarmed her and dragged her away, she obliterated the sanctuary’s connection to Milly. The Tutorias would be unable to find Milly in the game. She would be a ghost to them – as much of a ghost as the puppet master was to her – and Milly’s actions would go unnoticed.

Tutoria #0001 threw the child unceremoniously into her tiny bedroom and slammed the door shut. Luna tried to wrench it open, desperately pulling on the nob, but it would not budge. The Tutoria had sealed it shut.

“I’m sorry, Milly,” Luna whispered as she climbed onto her narrow bed and huddled in the corner, tears streaming down her face. She gripped Milly’s hoodie like a safety blanket as she let the sorrow and helplessness seep in. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Luna was abandoned in her room, the dozen monitors her only window into the outside world, though none would be able to show her Milly’s fate. The Tutorias severed her bedroom control panel, isolating the Director completely from her one purpose in life.

The despair that consumed Luna left her hollow and utterly alone.

“You’ll stay in there until you’re willing to cooperate,” Tutoria #0001 shouted through the door as she turned to the remaining Tutorias.

“Now, my sisters, we have a God Contest to run. Let’s get to work.”

They scattered to their consoles, and Tutoria #0001 felt a small smile rise at the corner of her lips. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

In the depths of Tutoria #0001’s program, the touch of madness that had taken root in her heart spread.

And the Nexus screamed.

* * *

The gentle, rhythmic sound of waves breaking against the shore filled the world, interrupted by the call of colorful songbirds that soared in pairs on hot, humid winds. The air was salty with ocean spray, and the fine white sand of the beach was so soft that it seemed to form a blanket underneath the unconscious woman that had drifted onto the island.

Beyond the irregular, weaving shoreline, a dense tropical forest spread over high rolling hills that stretched towards a single mountain of black rock at the center of the island. Tiny puffs of smoke emanated from its peak, its cloud only feature that marred the clear view of the stars high above.

A curious capybara poked its squat head from the jungle foliage and cautiously approached the mysterious woman on the beach. Its long, red-brown fur was a stark contrast to the white sand beneath it, and it covered the distance quickly with great strides of its partially webbed feet.

It sniffed at the woman’s dark hair splayed across the sand and watched as the thumbnail-sized crabs that frequented the beach at night crawled along its strands. The capybara squatted down and snatched one, grinding the snack between its teeth. It reached for a second and tugged a strand of the woman’s hair as it did.

The woman groaned weakly, and the capybara fled back to the jungle with a startled chirp.

Milly opened her eyes, the stars high above reflected within. “Where am I? What…”

It all came back to her. The dragon. The rift. Calista’s terrified scream as she was pulled inside. She bolted upright, the crabs in her hair dropping back to the sand, irritated at the sudden interruption.

She reached out with her mind.

Cally, are you there? Honey?

There was no answer. Their connection had been severed.

Milly tried to force logic to counter the growing panic. She only half succeeded.

“You fell through the rift,” Milly reminded herself, talking aloud to fill the silence. “You must be out of her range. That’s okay, Milly. You did want you needed to do. Your family is safe. Whatever awaits you ahead, it was a price worth paying to protect them.”

Milly got to her feet, her legs shaking. Her mouth was parched and her stomach growled.

How long was I unconscious? My magic reserves have almost been replenished, but not entirely. Half a day then? Good, I haven’t lost much time.

Milly absentmindedly ran her thumb across the joints of her fingers. They felt different – rough, with a tightness that hadn’t been there before. She inspected her hand.

Her fingers had been sliced to the bone when she had been ejected from the dragon’s head as it was pulled into the rift. Her regeneration skill had healed the injury, but it left behind a narrow scar across each finger.

“The Scarred Witch,” Milly sighed. “Eight more scars to add to the growing pile.”

Milly felt sorrow and self-pity attempt to take hold, but she boxed it away and stored it in the pit of her stomach. Salem’s Fury may not be active, but she had learned a few tricks from its effect on her.

There will be time for tears later, Milly. First, figure out where you are, and how to get back. A waypoint pillar. A crystal. Fuck, I’ll walk back if I have to. I won’t let this be the end of my story.

Parching her thirst with moisture pulled from the air, she took her first step towards the jungle and the mountain beyond.

“Cally. Passi. Rain. I’ll find my way back to you, whatever it takes,” Milly said, her words soaring away on the ocean breeze. “I promise.”

Three weeks ago, Milly Persephone Brown had been a lonely, depressed woman, abandoned by the world, and just waiting for it all to end.

Now she had something worth fighting. Love. Family. Friendship. They gave her strength and bravery she never thought she would ever possess.

The woman she had been on the day the God Contest pulled her into this world was no more.

In her place, Milly – The Witch of the Castle of Glass – had emerged. Powerful. Loyal. Loved.

Milly stared up at the mountain, and saw the twinkle of a ruined, metal building high up the slopes. Her eyes flashed with violet fire.

“This contest – these gods – are about to find out exactly what the Witch of the Castle of Glass is capable of. Cally, I’ll see you soon.”

She stepped into the jungle and towards the mountain.

Into the unknown.

* * *

Three thousand miles away, on the map of the world that comprised the Castle of Glass’ floor, and buried deep beneath the rubble, a miniscule pixel of the fog of war was revealed as Milly marched towards the mountain.

It was a land of ruin. Of mystery. Of dangerous foes and powerful rewards.

Seeped in knowledge its creator wanted to stay hidden from prying eyes of both players and gods alike.