Chapter 0 - End of Service
“Ah, shit…”
Isaac fumbled through his pockets with shaky fingers, the faint clink of tal echoing in the dim hallway.
After a few tries, he found the right key and jamd it into the lock.
Creak–
The old door gave way with a reluctant groan.
He stepped inside quietly, hoping no one had heard, his body leaning slightly against the fra as if the act of standing upright had beco too much effort.
Step step step
He tried to keep his footsteps light, but the apartnt floor betrayed him, creaking under each step.
A girl stood in front of him, glaring before pinching her nose in disgust and shouting.
“Ewww! Dad! Isaac’s been drinking again!”
Isaac winced.
So much for stealth.
A young girl stood in the living room, one hand on her hip, the other pinching her nose with exaggerated disgust.
He didn’t even need to look at her to know who it was.
“Piss off, Grace.”
“Eek—! Dadddd! Isaac swore at again!”
Her high-pitched voice grated against his already throbbing head.
He sighed, rubbing his temples. “Just ignore it,” he muttered under his breath.
The familiar heaviness pressed on his shoulders again, not from exhaustion, but from sothing quieter, deeper.
Isaac brushed past his sister and headed toward the bathroom without another word, ignoring her constant whining that followed behind him like background noise.
Slam
He shut the bathroom door roughly and walked over to the sink.
Pshhhhhh-
The sound of running water filled the silence as he splashed his face again and again until the cool sting grounded him.
When he finally looked up, a stranger stared back from the mirror.
Sunken eyes. Dry skin. Greasy hair clinging to his forehead.
“…Wow, I look like shit.”
He gave a hollow laugh. His reflection didn’t return it.
When did I start looking like this?
He didn’t rember.
But even that required energy to care.
And Isaac didn’t have that anymore.
“Whatever…”
He turned off the tap, grabbed a towel, and wiped his face without looking again.
Click
The door opened.
A tall, broad-shouldered man filled the doorway, his presence heavy enough to change the air in the room.
“Where have you been?”
The voice was calm but sharp, practised.
It wasn’t the voice of soone asking out of concern.
“I just went out,” Isaac replied, tone flat.
He tried to slip past, but a hand shot out and gripped his shoulder tightly.
“We need to talk.”
That voice, cold, controlled.
Every word dug into Isaac’s nerves like a needle.
His body stiffened automatically, muscle mory from years of dealing with the sa tone.
“Can we do it tomorrow? I’m tired.”
The hand on his shoulder tightened.
A small pain shot through his collarbone.
Isaac didn’t turn around.
“You’re hurting .”
“I told you we need to talk.”
The grip loosened slightly, but not enough to let him go.
He forced his arm upward and brushed the hand off, ignoring the way it trembled as it dropped.
“I’m going to bed.”
“If you don’t listen,” his father said casually, “you know what’ll happen.”
Isaac froze.
He didn’t need to look back.
He didn’t need to hear the rest.
The aning was always the sa.
A quiet laugh escaped his lips before he could stop it, a tired, humourless sound.
“Heh.”
“Was sothing funny?”
Isaac didn’t respond. He just walked toward his room.
His mother’s voice followed.
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?”
He clenched his jaw.
Grinding
He ground his teeth, forcing himself to stay quiet.
‘Even if I tried to explain, it wouldn’t matter. It never does.’
‘They’ll always pick her.’
By the ti he reached his door, his chest felt heavy.
SLAM
He shut it and locked it imdiately.
The quiet that followed was suffocating, but it was still better than the noise outside.
“Hahh…”
He exhaled slowly, rubbing his face.
His body felt like it was collapsing in on itself, but at least he was alone.
At least in here, he could breathe.
He slumped into his chair and hit the power button on his PC.
Whirrrr
The hum of the fans filled the room as the monitor flickered to life.
Click click
The mouse moved sluggishly under his fingers, muscle mory guiding him through the familiar steps.
—♪
A cheerful tune played through his speakers.
On-screen, golden letters faded in against a starry backdrop.
.
❰The Knight of Stellaris❱
[Continue]
.
“Alright, let’s just… play for a bit,” he muttered.
Click
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[Loading… 32%]
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[Loading… 76%]
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[Loading… 99%]
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[Loading Complete]
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‘Finally.’
He leaned forward, waiting for the title screen to fade, but before he could move, a notification popped up.
Every word Isaac read made his heart sink further and further…
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[IMPORTANT] Support for “The Knight of Stellaris” is ending.
[End of Service Announcent]
——————————————
We regret to announce the closure of The Knight of Stellaris. Thank you all for your support. We hope you enjoyed playing. We will keep the servers open until March 2nd, 2026, at 9:00 PM PST, so please continue to enjoy The Knight of Stellaris until the very end.
For more information, please refer to the official announcent on the TKS Forums, linked below.
stksforums/news/eos-announcent
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Isaac stared blankly at the ssage.
“…Ha.”
He laughed quietly, though it sounded closer to a sigh.
“What a fucking joke.”
Click
He closed the announcent and stared at the screen for a mont, but his hand didn’t move.
The ga’s bright logo stared back at him like a mory he didn’t want to lose.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
For ten whole minutes, he sat there, cycling through nus.
He wasn’t even really playing, just clicking, switching screens, scrolling through characters he’d spent years building.
“What’s the point?”
His voice was barely a whisper.
Knowing it would all disappear soon made every action feel pointless.
Eventually, he opened the forums out of habit.
Maybe there’d be so kind of follow-up post, a developer apology, anything.
.
[The Knight of Stellaris - End of Service] - By Semroft.
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He scrolled down.
The post was standard PR speak; apologies, gratitude, and a copy-pasted tiline for shutdown.
Still, it hit him harder than he expected.
The Knight of Stellaris, or TKS for short, was an RPG with life-sim elents.
It was a ga Isaac had been playing since its release, a little over five years ago, when he was still in middle school.
When it first ca out, its player base was huge, thanks to being one of the first of its kind.
However, as ti passed, an increasing number of people abandoned TKS and moved on to other gas.
Firstly, since it was a live-service ga, its popularity fluctuated significantly depending on how recently it was updated.
That being said, there were many other reasons behind the player's decline; the main one was that the story lost its charm after a certain point.
At the ti, there were rumours that Semroft had hired new writers, which might explain why it felt so different, but whatever the reason, it didn’t change the fact that the story beca worse and worse.
Even the most recent update was poorly received due to its generic feel, especially since it marked the end of an almost six-year-long story.
Unlike most, though, Isaac had never left the ga.
In fact, he had done almost everything possible in TKS.
Every character he owned was completely maxed out, all of their personal stories were complete, and he had even been ranking within the top 5 in PvP consistently for the past 3 years.
On top of all of that, he had obtained every single achievent in the ga, which was almost an impossible feat for a ga like this.
‘That didn’t an I didn’t have any gripes, though.’
Even soone as committed as Isaac had been on the forums complaining to the devs about story or balance changes nurous tis.
Why had he stayed with the ga so long then?
There was just one simple reason.
TKS wasn’t just a ga.
It was his ga.
It was a ga that had helped him during the worst monts of his life, and so he was never able to drop it.
And now it was ending.
Scrolling through the comnts only made him feel worse.
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└ ISIMPFOR2DWON: Why did they have to ruin the ga?
└ PandaDigger: About ti.
└ Bunns28: Lololol deserved
└ Firenzy: Ded ga xd
└ Leafar91: Surprised it made it this far
└ Livia_chan: Thanks for everything
└ Omnor: Shit ga
└ Pongpong: Semroft I would like to ask why you ruined the ga, the most recent update ‘Light vs Dark’ was very disappointing and I would like to ask how any of your team thought this was a good idea, I’ve been playing this ga since day 1 and have been looking forward to the ending of the story, even wading through all the ssy content that had been released over the years…► See more…
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As expected, the comnts were largely harsh.
There was even soone who had written a 3000-word comnt describing his disappointnt with the ga, which Isaac found to be an entertaining read.
Seeing all of these comnts, though, Isaac had a thought.
‘Was TKS really that bad?’
No, not really.
Sure, the story had dropped in quality, but it was still fine.
The gaplay was solid, and the world had charm.
People just loved tearing things down when they were ending.
He exhaled through his nose and started typing.
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└ YvetteMyBeloved: Thanks for everything, good luck on the next project!
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