We spent around ten minutes checking every inch of this god damn tower for a way out. First floor to fifth, up and down every nooks and crevices of it.
The banquet hall was still dimly lit by that sa orange hue bleeding from beneath the door. The air was heavy with that woody, moldy scent of rotting tables and wet ash.
I tried the fireplace, poking at the ashes for anything hidden underneath. Yet there was just splinters, soot, and a bone that looked too big to belong to a chicken...
I tried the wooden door, but we’ve established that it achieved nothing.
The second floor, where Rina is searching, was still cold and quiet. The air stank faintly of old perfu and dead flowers.
The furniture barely moved when I pushed them away, heavier than necessary, and the sheets on Worsetingale’s bed felt rather... Cold, quite cold for so reason.
The third floor, where we’d seen the storage barrels and alchemy stuff, this and the 4th floor was the most suspicious, so naturally I spent quite a bit of ti on these two.
I rember passing my finger along a glass vial, the dust was thick enough to smudge, which was another discreprancy in my book, considering how the other floors felt brand new. Compounded upon that was when Rina muttered sothing about "the residue being too recent," which didn’t make sense.
Nothing of note, not even a hint or a lever.
Was this... Just, a really well thought out trap?
The fourth floor was... a ss, but the interesting kind of ss.
If Worsetingale was half as brilliant as the legends made him out to be, then this was the exact place where that brilliance died.
I could taste sothing bitter and tallic, like burnt mana crystals and copper wiring.
At the far end of the room, there were sothing I didn’t notice before, a barrel filled with shattered conduits: broken staves, bent rings, goggles?
So kind of blue powder covered every item in that said barrel, I think it used to be crushed gemstones, but now it just looked like glowing sand.
I dusted my hand of those powder, not wanting to cross contaminate shits, and took a step back, when I felt myself bumping into a tall brass device covered in spiraling coils and dangling gemstones.
So kind of magic construction, maybe? This is ridiculous... I don’t ever rember anything like this, so this wasn’t in the Early Access nor the PC version.
"Nothing over here." Rina said, putting down so kind of seer globe, "You?"
"Nothing..." I shook my head.
Finally, we climbed to the fifth floor, the roof... Yet, nothing was new. Only cobblestones, moss, broken bowstring, scattered arrows, maybe a hint of wind breezing through the silence.
Rina seed to be disappointed, as without another word, she started descending the stairs.
But then! I thought of sothing.
I hastily removed my right gauntlet and paddings to look at my bare arm, and I was right. Indeed, there was a bracelet there.
The Bracelet of Eternal Friendship was still there, the item that let keep an eye on my stupid little friend from across the world. This item would allow to know where they are, even in dungeons, even ten of thousands of nautical miles away.
...
It was supposed to, at least.
I turned my wrist, frowning, tapping the screen like an idiot.
"Where is he? Why isn’t he showing up?" I muttered. "He’s supposed to..."
"She’s supposed to..."
...
Who was I even looking for?
I checked my friend list, all were offline. So I guess that explains it... They logged off after waiting for for too long.
Good friends.
I made my way back down through the floors. To the fourth, third, and then finally, second floor, where Rina was staying. She was lying flat on the wizard’s bed, staring at the ceiling like a corpse
"What are you doing?" I snapped. "We need to figure this out! Do you not want to leave?"
"Do you know when did we entered the tower of Worsetingale, Cory?" She asked , her voice cracking.
"What?" I replied.
"It was 18:31:20, could be five seconds late or ten seconds early, I often check the ti just to see if it’s my ti to log off. But, around that bush."
"WHAT?" I got more aggressive this ti, frustrated by her cryptic talking. I’ve already got Ann and Tanya to talk cryptically to , no need for this strange woman, too.
"Just..." she murmured. "Check the ti, Cory."
I frowned and pulled open the UI nu, the interactive nu that every players access to open the inventory, check quest, their own stats, logging out, etc.
There was an option to check the ti clock.
18:31:22
I waited for the last digit to move to three.
After five seconds, it did not update.
"... Holy fuck." I said.
"Language." Rina finally turned her head, eyes dull and tired.
"That’s impossible, we’ve been here for like... What, fucking- like, I don’t know! twenty, thirty minutes?"
"Whatever the case is, you saw that the clock isn’t moving." Rina she sat up, her light sleeveless faintly clinking. "Go throw sothing off the roof."
"What?"
"I did it earlier when you weren’t there, just trust ."
With her amazing persuasion skills, I did as asked.
Up to the fifth floor again, through the sa steps, sa cobblestones, sa silence.
I picked up a small piece of arrow that was broken in half, too small to use for an attack and held it out over the edge.
I dropped it.
The mont it left my hand, it fell to what I think is the 4th or 3rd floor, before completely disintegrating into thin air.
I stared at the edge, my stomach tightening as my hands started shaking. I could feel my blood boiling up at that mont.
But then... I wanted to know.
So I climbed up the parapet and took a deep breath.
I looked up to the skies, begging for a blessing, and took a step forward onto nothing.
The sharp wind rushed in my ears.
Have you ever had that dream where you would be deep in your slumbers, yet, a dream suddenly intrudes, you found yourself high up in the sky, falling down.
And then you would have a heart attack and got back up, drenched in sweats and eyes wide.
That’s exactly what I felt.
And then I was back on the roof, exactly where I jumped from.
I didn’t even feel anything, just, in a blink, and I didn’t even blink, I kept my eyes opened wide.
So, I did it again.
Sa result.
By the third ti, I could feel tears prickling the corner of my eyes.
I stumbled back down to the second floor. Rina hadn’t moved. She looked at like she already knew... Perhaps she didn’t know about the committing suicide part, but definitely the disappearing item act part.
"So..." I swallowed hard. "What the fuck is happening?"
"Have you read those dystopian cliché where soone gets trapped inside a simulation for a hundred years, and in the real world it’s been less than a second? As a way to imprison people and whatnot." She swung her legs off the bed, leaning forward.
"Stop talking in riddle, PLEASE!" I slamd my hand against the stairs.
"...Think about it, Cory. What if ti outside this tower... Both the people in ga, and the people in real life, isn’t moving? No, I phrased that wrong... More like, what if the mont we entered this tower, our consciousness stopped at a singular mont in ti?"
"That’s insane, jesus fuck." I rubbed my temple, "I guess... Since Darkmoon Adventure VR already fucked with our perception of reality by giving us realistic physics and interactions with just a pair of glasses and a pod to play video gas, I guess that’s possible... But like, why, we’re only level 50!"
She didn’t answer.
"..." I took a deep breath, "So you’re suggesting this tower’s like a... magical ti bubble?"
"A good term is a consciousness trap, and if I actually got infinite ti, I believe I could start catching up on so books..."
Rina seed rather chill about this for so fucking reason? God, I want to stab this bitch so bad.
That phrase stuck in my head like a hook.
"I don’t think the Sonder Interactive group would turn their flagship MMORPG into a psychological torture chamber?"
I sat down on the edge of the bed as Rina scooted aside, I pressed my palm against my forehead.
"So what does that an? We’re? What if it never does?" I asked.
"Then we’ll be here," Rina said softly with a smile, "until the heat death of the universe. And when our relatives found us unable to log out and get back to real life, Sonders Interactive gets sue and shut down, we’ll be in this place until our brain official shut down... Or never, if our consciousness’ already uploaded."
Her voice cracked at the last part, and that made it worse.
"But..." Rina lay back down, her eyes t mine. "I think it’s already too late for us to do anything."
...
... I just stared at her, thinking deeply.
...
... She closed her eyes, resting.
...
"Or I can just, like- fucking, log out of the ga? Have you try doing that you creep?"
It took a lot of courage and context for soone like to call another woman "creep". But in this context, I feel like I am justified.
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