021 - 748 Years Ago (Part One)
“—Fuck, what just happened!? Sound off, Karravar [kava]! …Okay, that’s [Blackbright], [Laureate_King], [sunny_side_up], [Hadrian’s_Fyre]... What, [Ayle]? [Ayle] had something to take care of IRL, she shouldn’t even be in-game right now, so—wait, what? What do you mean she’s comatose!?”
—Player [Stormold] to his guildmates, Transmigration Day, 758 Years Ago
“You’re sure you’ve got it covered, Fala?” Aedan confirmed for what seemed like the hundredth time, rushing around his office in the Varranir operating base of Karravar [kava].
“Yes, Karravar Ehdan, sir! Leave it to me!” The excitable girl chirped in response.
“And if you run into a problem you can’t solve on your own?” Aedan prodded. Fala furrowed her eyebrows in thought for a moment, until she lit up like a Christmas tree as she remembered what he’d told her earlier that morning.
“I should go find Big Bro Jeyol, because you gave him a way to contact you while you’re away.” She beamed at him, apparently pleased with herself. Fala was always eager to please—and was an exemplary student to boot. Aedan had never regretted taking in the orphans that had come out of Titanomachy, but Fala was magically gifted in a way none of his other pupils were. It was almost like teaching a teenaged Ai.
It had been ten years since the Players of A Dirge for the Sun had been abruptly transmigrated to Varrah, but Aedan still hoped that she’d just wake up out of the blue and start bossing them around like she used to back during the good old days. Nostalgia tugged at his heartstrings, so he turned the emotion into a smile for Fala.
“Alright. Then I’ll leave you to it.” Aedan scrunched his lower lip up to goof up his auburn—not grey yet, he was still in his thirties, thank you very much—beard. Fala had always responded well when he made strange faces as a child, and even now that hadn’t changed. He patted Fala on the shoulder a couple of times, the movement awkward with his thickly gloved hand.
“Have fun, sir!” Fala chirped again.
“I always do!” Aedan laughed, feeling his chest rumble with nascent power as the laughter accelerated his heartbeat. He routed the potential through Eye of the Storm, which was in its usual holster at his hip.
Better get going.
He skipped out of the office—as much as a six-foot eight giant of a man in big, stompy boots could skip—eager to get going. Aedan MacLeod was many things, but he’d be damned if he was ever late to the yearly Karravar [kava] reunion.
Outside of the office, it was a sunny Varran day with not a cloud in sight. The crater of Varranir, the site of the final battle of Titanomachy, had become a bustling hotspot for activity over the last ten years. Pilgrims from all over the lands of Varrah were converging on Varranir, eager to settle in what was quickly becoming a new center of safety, security, and commerce.
Aegis Origa [ORIGA] had leveraged their logistical reach and position as co-leader of the Coalition of Frontline Guilds to become the de facto power of the region. Not that the politics mattered much to Aedan; it just wasn’t worth the hassle to butt heads with the power-hungry fools. From the moment it had become apparent that the game had become reality, they’d started with their shenanigans as if their alliance had never mattered.
As long as the people’s needs were being met though, Aedan couldn’t care less who was in charge.
Th-thump. Th-thump.
Aedan let his heartbeat mount, each beat sending a current of electromagnetic potential coursing through his veins. [Eye of the Storm] responded in kind.
Th-thump. Th-thump.
Aedan let each beat of his heart carve its familiar shape into reality, and his Semblance made it so.
[The-Heart-That-Beats-Like-Thunder].
He reached a hand out to the sky, feeling his auburn hair begin to stand on end as static electricity sparked all around him—
—With a deafening crackle and the booming of lightning, a bolt of electricity slammed down from the skies into his waiting hand.
Fala had followed him out, accompanied by a few of the younger orphans as she did. They cheered and hollered as the lightning hit, and Aedan couldn’t help but grin like a loon. It was wasteful, to be sure, but he loved showing off for the kids.
“Be good, everyone!” He shouted, and extended his senses along the path the lightning had carved through the atmosphere. He ran through the conceptual links for [Fantastic Electromagnetic Railroad], and as his Semblance pressed the spell into reality, he felt the familiar yanking of his transportation spell pull him into the air along the lightning’s trajectory.
Strictly speaking, he could access the Glassway from the ground. But where was the fun in that?
A few moments later, he was high above the crater of Varranir, the Karravar [kava] office a speck in the distance. He reached out with his senses again, this time feeling for the telltale Semblance of the Glassway. It didn’t take long for his guild’s custom fast travel system to recognize him, and the sky in front of him shattered open in a glittering eruption of magic. He disengaged [Fantastic Electromagnetic Railroad], allowing the Glassway’s magic to pull him into the fast travel corridor.
Reality seemed to crackle and twinkle, sparkling like glitter all around Aedan as he zoomed across the continent of Varrah. He always thought that transit through the Glassway was rather pretty, sounding like thousands of tiny bells clinking and chiming.
The world below disappeared into a blur of yellows, browns, greens, and blues. Within minutes, he had crossed the continent, leaving the Tranquil Sea far behind him. Aedan flew beyond the Varran Desert, over the Northern Wilds, the waters of the Trident, and past the Unruled Plains, far to the northeast of Dirge’s explorable area back during the game. So much of the world was now entirely new, completely uncharted territory.
Karravaran was just ahead.
Soon after the Transmigration, [Blackbright] had floated the idea of moving Karravaran from its location above Varrah, far beyond the edges of the known world, and even further beyond the reach of their enemies. The entire guild had agreed unanimously. Nobody wanted even the slightest risk of their enemies—and even their current allies—discovering [Ayle] as she rested, after all.
It was a scant seven minutes later that Aedan arrived at the base of the guild hall. Karravaran floated high above the planet below, hovering in the liminal gap between the [World-Stage] and [Outside-Void], a shining, alabaster-white castle on a platform of jagged stone. Karravaran’s blade-like spires of white-gold reached up into the stars, reflecting the sunlight that shone impossibly bright in the almost nonexistent atmosphere, a sculpture hanging in the black of space.
To borrow science fiction terms, they had turned Karravaran into a space station hanging over Varrah in low geosynchronous orbit.
It hadn’t started that way, to be sure. Years ago, Ai had wanted to build a castle in the sky, a guild hall that couldn’t be matched by any other Player organization in the game. What they would come to call Karravaran had begun its existence as a mid-tier Player home that he and Ai had purchased and developed high up in the Vayash mountains that bordered the Varran Desert to its east—a mountain range that in another timeline would one day become known as the Appalachians. A modest fortress set up in cloudy peaks, overlooking the desert and from where their newly founded guild could base its operations.
Where their competitors like Aegis Origa [ORIGA], Olympos [godz], and others, were content to use their guilds’ real estate to manage on-site Non-Player Character assets or to control actual territory in the gameworld, Karravar [kava] went all in on magical development to push the boundaries of what was possible within Dirge’s game engine. They didn’t rely on NPC labor, after all. All of their output was theorycrafted and built through their own efforts.
They were a small guild, at first just he and Ai. Then two became three, then four, and more. [Hadrian’s_Fyre], [Laureate_King], [else_eption], [Blackbright], [Fenocian], [sunny_side_up], [dragon_of_suzhou], [Prometheus], [beefus_maximus], [scryczar], and [behrouz].
By the time Titanomachy had begun, Karravar [kava] had already lifted Karravaran into the sky. When they completed the Glassway not too long after, they turned their combined intellect to integrating its magic into Karravaran’s foundations. As long as the Glassway remained protected from intrusion, the only avenue for ingress a would-be attacker could even take was to go the long way up.
The list of Players able to independently reach that altitude, or otherwise send an attack to orbit was vanishingly short. There were two clear reasons their guild of thirteen Players—if you were to include their guild leader—could match the combined might of Aegis Origa [ORIGA] as equal partners in the Coalition when they numbered in the hundreds: Magical expertise and orbital superiority.
And now, Karravaran was even more impenetrable—no, inaccessible—than it had been back then.
Aedan heard the Glassway’s clinking and twinkling begin to wind down and prepared to land. The main pavilion of Karravaran opened up beneath him, its white-gold architecture catching the sunlight. Thirteen alcoves ringed a central pavilion in a semicircle, each assigned to a Karravar [kava] member and built to the specifications of its owner. They were personal shrines of a sort, each connected to a bespoke, spatially-compressed magical storage system containing all of the gear they didn’t want to lug around all the time. Some of them even made entire personal rooms inside their hammerspace alcoves.
Aedan's own alcove was one such personal space, a workshop designed like a forge with an attached study. Others were wilder, stranger. More idiosyncratic. For example, [Hadrian's_Fyre]’s loot stash had morphed into a literal booze cellar over the years.
But the thing that drew his eye—that always drew his eye—was at the center of the pavilion, elevated slightly above the other alcoves on a dais of white stone. A sarcophagus rested there, its transparent lid shimmering faintly with the steady pulse of a preservation weave. Inside it, [Ayle]—Ai—lay as she had for the past ten years. Perfectly still and untouched by time or decay.
Aedan's boots hit the pavilion floor with a heavy stomp. His nose twitched on reflex.
It stank of alcohol.
He followed his nose to the dais and found [Hadrian’s_Fyre] sitting on the floor. His back was against Ai's sarcophagus and he had his long legs stretched out in front of him. He had a ceramic jug of some sort of distilled alcohol dangling loosely from one hand. His dark hair was longer than it was the last time Aedan had seen him, a few more grey hairs than before and tied back in a loose knot.
Aedan rolled his eyes.
“How's Sleeping Beauty?” He called out, his voice echoing across the pavilion.
“Sleeping beautifully, as always.” Hadrian raised the jug in a lazy salute without even looking up. He took a swig.
Aedan crossed the pavilion floor, heavy boots thumping against stone as he approached the dais. He climbed the steps and stood over Hadrian, looking down at him for a beat, then in the sarcophagus. Ai's face was peaceful, unaware of the world around her. The magic sustaining her hummed softly, a low chord that Aedan felt echoing in his chest as he approached.
“...So where is everyone?”
“You're just early, dude." [Hadrian’s_Fyre] finally looked up, squinting at Aedan with the vaguely accusatory expression of someone whose solitude had been interrupted. “I was first to the guildhall this year, and even I only got here like ten minutes ago.”
“We're missing a few this year, actually,” he continued. Aedan lowered himself to sit on the edge of the dais beside the man, as he continued, “[Blackbright] sent word that he can't make it. Something about a research project he can't leave unattended.”
“Shocking.” Aedan smirked.
“You know how he gets when he's stuck down one of his nerdy-ass rabbit holes.” [Hadrian’s_Fyre] waved a hand. “And [Laureate_King] just had his second kid—another daughter, can you believe it? He's spending time with his family.”
“Hey, that's the first I'm hearing of this! Good for King!” Aedan clapped [Hadrian’s_Fyre] on the shoulder.
“No, not good, that man could cook and now I’ll have to suffer your excuse for food.” He grumbled, then took yet another drink. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, the only sound the faint hum of Ai's preservation magic and the ambient thrum of Karravaran’s maintenance spells.
The air on the far side of the pavilion shattered like glass—incidentally, what the Glassway was named for. A spiderweb of cracks spread through empty air, each fracture line sparking with that signature golden glittering. Reality shattered open and a figure tumbled into Karravaran with considerably less grace than Aedan had managed on his own landing.
[Fenocian] hit the pavilion floor in a controlled roll, came up on one knee, and brushed off his coat with an air of dignity that the stumble had thoroughly undercut. He dusted off his shoulders. He looked around the pavilion, then at Aedan, [Hadrian’s_Fyre], then at the empty guildhall.
“Where is everyone?”
“That's what I said!” Aedan threw his hands up in the air.
[Hadrian’s_Fyre] let his head fall back against the sarcophagus with an audible thunk. “Dude. You're gonna make me explain again? I literally just gave Stormy the rundown. You couldn't have gotten here like, thirty seconds earlier?”
“...You are such a jackass, Hadrian.” [Fenocian] straightened up and crossed his arms. “Missed you too, by the way.”
[Hadrian’s_Fyre] just raised his jug again in silently mocking acknowledgment.
[Fenocian] climbed the dais steps and took a seat on the opposite side from Aedan, completing a loose triangle around Ai's resting place. He looked good. A little thinner than Aedan remembered, maybe a little more weathered around the eyes, but his characteristic intensity was still there. The man had always been wired tightly.
“By the way, Fenoc, have you heard anything from Sunny? I haven’t been able to get in touch with her in a while.” Aedan asked.
“Yeah. I talked to [sunny_side_up] last month.” [Fenocian] leaned back on his hands. “Said she's shacked up with a fellow Swedish player from BioSculpt [rodin]. Something about making cheese.”
Aedan blinked.
“With what cows?” He looked between [Fenocian] and [Hadrian’s_Fyre]. "Unless dinosaurs could make milk this entire time?"
“Don't ask me, Stormy. I really don't know.”
“Making cheese, eh?” [Hadrian’s_Fyre] gave an exaggerated wink. “Swedes, man. Am I right?”
Aedan wasn't aware of any Swedish reputation for cheese—or weirdness in general—but he'd learned a long time ago that rolling with [Hadrian's_Fyre]’s non-sequiturs was considerably less exhausting than the alternative. He considered his retort carefully.
“I do miss pizza.”
“Amen to that. To cheese sticks and pizza and weird-ass gourmet cheese.” [Hadrian’s_Fyre] toasted himself and took another long drink. Aedan watched him from the corner of his eye and felt a familiar knot of worry tighten in his chest. The man had always been fond of drink, but there was a difference between fond and addicted.
He’d mention it to the man some time. Just not today. Today was supposed to be a happy occasion, after all.
Aedan looked down at Ai's resting form again, at the faint golden glow of her hair and the stillness of her hands folded over her chest. He hoped beyond hope that she was thriving out there, in the ‘real’ world. That was the last he’d seen of her, after all. She was going to confront her fears and—
"Stormy! Catch!"
Aedan's hand shot up on pure reflex, snatching the bottle out of the air before his brain had fully registered the throw. The ceramic was cool against his palm and heavy with liquid; [Hadrian’s_Fyre] had come prepared, apparently.
“Yeah, I got more where that came from.” Apparently he’d said that out loud.
“So I guess we're pre-gaming?” Aedan smirked, uncorking the bottle and enjoying the fruity, buttery scent of the distilled spirit inside. Whatever [Hadrian's_Fyre]’s faults, the man had impeccable taste in alcohol.
[Fenocian] had already produced his own flask from somewhere inside his coat, because of course he had. The contents were probably something watered down so much it was probably flavored water, if it was even booze at all. [Fenocian] could never handle alcohol, so he usually drank to participate, not to get drunk.
“To our Sleeping Beauty!” [Hadrian’s_Fyre] raised his jug high, his voice echoing throughout the empty pavilion. “May her legend live on. Always.”
“To Sleeping Beauty!” Aedan and Fenoc cheered.
They all took a drink, eager to meet the rest of their comrades for a night of reminiscing and good times.