Elijah sat on the edge of the cliff overlooking the crater that had once been Nethy. Behind him, Bitter Root, Dryad, and Bat played in the field, completely unaware of how sorrowful a location this was for their silly games.

  He turned to face them, watching as they played a wild version of tag. Bitter Bat would teleport away or glide away when the others got close. Bitter Dryad kept sprinting through trees or sinking into the ground. And of course Bitter Root could hide from the others using his stealth.

  Right now Bitter Root was ‘it’, and he was currently chasing Bitter Dryad. Elijah watched it play out; the goblin was quickly gaining on the dryad, who didn’t have knees, and just as he was about to close the gap, Bitter Dryad dropped into the earth as if a puddle had formed beneath his feet. Bitter Root dove for him but found solid ground and went skidding across the field face-first.

  The goblin began swearing up a storm, words that Elijah didn’t even know that the creature knew, and was about to holler at them to play nicely when a teleport bubble opened up. Elijah was immediately on his feet, sword in hand and mental finger on the debug menus of his familiars.

  Out of the bubble stepped a scrawny, shaggy-haired young man wearing mage robes.

  [Player]

  Name: Benjamin

  Class: Mage | Level: 20

  HP: 100 / 100

  “Hey man, I know it’s been a couple days, but you can’t be that upset I went to train by myself,” Benjamin said, staring at Elijah’s raised sword. Elijah followed his line of sight down to the weapon and let out a heavy sigh as he dispelled it.

  “Sorry, man, this trial thing has me all jumpy. The last few times I was near a Celestial they either tried to kill me,” Visions of the final confrontation with Arturus sprang into his mind unbidden and he had to suppress a shudder of the memory of being drowned, “or they tried to turn me over to the one who was trying to kill me.”

  Benjamin nodded his head as he approached him, placing his hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You know me and the rest of the party will stall them long enough for you to get away if they try anything.”

  The mage turned to face the familiars, watching them play. “Plus, you have those little psychos to cause some nice confusion for you.”

  The three familiars stopped and stared at Benjamin, as if they’d heard his words. They turned in unison and gave him toothy grins. He took a step back away from them, his gut reaction to them being fear. Elijah had to chuckle at his friend’s reaction.

  “I suppose it’s time to go then,” he told his friend, looking over at where Benjamin had spawned his teleport bubble to come in. “Though I think I’ll make my own way. No offense.”

  “Trust me, I get it. I don’t like using my teleport spell any more than the rest of you do.”

  The three Bitters rushed over, jumping up and clinging onto Elijah’s leather armor. They weighed him down, and he could feel himself beginning to sink into the wet ground beneath him. He was stronger in the game than he had ever been in real life, but even still the weight of the three creatures was a hefty load to bear.

  “I’ll see you there, Benjamin.” Elijah channeled his mana into his ‘Dragontooth Teleport’, letting the familiar flurry of wings and fur engulf him.

  Normally, non-Celestial players were unable to access the Temple of Creation. When Annika first ascended to Celestial, at least from what Elijah had been told, she had received a quest to uncover the forgotten temple. Arturus had received the quest as well but didn’t consider it worth his time, so Annika and her husband, Kyle, had travelled off the coast of the continent. It had been a harrowing experience, but they had unlocked a gathering place for their kind, the players at the top of the game. A place they could rest and relax without the eyes of the world on them.

  Streaming was impossible within the walls of the temple. And with so few players at the Celestial-tier, there were rarely more than one or two players there at any given time.

  Each non-Celestial player required a Celestial-tier sponsor to be allowed within the hallowed walls. When they had asked Elijah to be part of the trial against Arturus, he had agreed on the condition that his friends be there as well. He hadn’t known at the time just what a big ask that would be. Five friends, including himself, meant five sponsors. Daven had refused to sponsor anyone, seemingly uncaring about anything other than getting back to his solo grinding far to the southeast. Negotiations for Elijah’s participation had nearly fallen through when a surprise came out of the one place he had never expected it.

  Arturus had agreed to sponsor a member of Sasha’s Babysitting Service for entry to the Temple. Elijah immediately became concerned when he found that out. He didn’t believe for one moment that the man didn’t have an ulterior motive for that sponsorship. His friends were the only ones who had finally settled him down enough to accept that he was just doing it to get under Elijah’s skin.

  The bats swooped down and merged back into Elijah’s shadow, depositing him in the main courtyard of the Temple of Creation. His friends immediately moved in; they’d come ahead of time to make sure that this wasn’t a trap. Off to the side, Benjamin’s teleport shimmered into existence, and he stepped through, meeting up with the rest. For the first time in days, the Babysitting Service was back together.

  Nicholas, beginning to regain a somewhat human appearance after the Heartwood Sovereign class had reshaped his body, patted him on the shoulder. “Welcome back, Elijah. Did you get plenty of self-reflection done while you were gone?”

  Elijah smiled up at the man, a feeling he still wasn’t used to, being around someone taller than him. “Not many mirrors here in Astoria, plus I don’t have your rugged good looks.”

  Nicholas smiled at him and patted his shoulder again. “Well, of course not. You're not a Hollywood elite like I am. Don’t expect yourself to be as conventionally attractive as I am.”

  From behind him, Bo snorted. “Alright, lovebirds, come on. The Celestials are expecting us.”

  Elijah looked up at the Temple of Creation. The towers lifted high into the sky, twisting into spiraling double-helix shapes. The stone, at first glance, looked to be polished marble, but as Elijah got closer, the intricate patterns came into focus. Fractals repeating into infinity boggled the mind, starting out as large shapes before spiralling down into patterns too small for the human eye to make out. Human hands didn’t make this temple; neither built nor coded, it would take decades to make something so complex. No, a goddess made this building. The goddess, who was also the game’s AI.

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  They entered through the front door into a room of bright, gleaming marble. Their footsteps echoed through the great hall. At the back, sitting on a plinth of granite, were four of the six strongest players in the game. He didn’t recognize the two men there, but he of course recognized Mara and Annika. Mara he had met in person twice, once when she saved him from Tom, and the second when she had tried to capture him to turn him over to Arturus. The next woman, however, was easy to recognize. Anyone with a passing interest in Lordship of Sorcery could recognize Annika. When she had reached Celestial-tier, the marketing team had plastered her face all over the internet.

  The other two—the men—were unknown to Elijah other than their names. Thankfully, because of their player tags, Elijah could put a name to each face. Bo, with his developer knowledge, had filled in the rest.

  One was Kyle, Annika’s husband, the Grave Sovereign. He was a powerful Necromancer before he’d gained his unique Celestial-tier class. He was proof that users of the class didn’t need to turn evil like Arturus had. On top of that, he was a skilled crafter, making many of the pieces of near-celestial gear that existed in this area of the world.

  The other was Kole, and Elijah jumped when he had seen the man’s class. ‘Dragontooth Guardian’. Elijah recalled the Dragontooth Armorer mentioning a Guardian and wondered if she had meant this man. He could feel strands of code coming from him; their classes were intertwined somehow. Elijah had to find a way to talk to the man safely, and alone.

  Sasha’s Babysitting Service approached the plinth and took their designated positions. A wall of shimmering green energy sprang up around them. Elijah’s gut instinct was to teleport away, but Mara spoke and calmed his nerves. “This is for your protection. Daven will bring Arturus forward in a moment. If he tries anything, it will give you time to teleport away before he can break it.”

  Elijah touched the spell that would allow him to teleport away, testing to make sure she wasn’t lying and that there were no blocks on his mana, but everything felt okay. He could sense that the bats could come out at his command and whisk him to safety. She was telling the truth, or at least that was how it appeared.

  ”I know it doesn’t mean much, Elijah, but I am sorry for what happened the last time we met. I was scared, which I am sure you understand.” Her head hung low, but Elijah still wasn’t willing to believe her, regardless of what she or his friends told him. The risk of trusting her outweighed the risk of not. Just like Arturus couldn’t be trusted. He’d already shown himself willing to destroy an entire city if there was a threat to his power in this world.

  After several long, tense moments, Arturus finally made his appearance, being led inside by the final member of the Celestials, Daven. No one knew much about the man other than that he liked to keep to himself and maintain his privacy. Bo had little information about him either, just small hints about where he had been operating.

  What was clear, though, was that Arturus was leery of the man.

  The two men came abreast of Elijah’s party in front of the plinth and Arturus grinned over at Elijah. “Good to see you again, Reality Warper. You look thirsty; need some water?”

  The grin on the man’s face showed he knew exactly what he had said to Elijah. He was mocking how Elijah had died the last time they fought. Bitter Root lunged at him, growling like a rabid dog and frothing at the Necro Drifter. Elijah grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held him back. “That won’t help anything here, Bitter Root,” Elijah scolded, but the monster continued to stare daggers at Arturus.

  ”If we are ready to begin,” Arturus addressed the other Celestials in the room, “I would like to formally request the assistance of my colleagues in freeing my guild from this man’s prison.”

  Elijah was stunned into silence. He couldn’t believe the gall of this man. Attempting to turn this trial against him into a trial against Elijah for trapping the army that he’d sent to kill or capture Elijah. The absurdity of the moment was almost too much, and he immediately understood why Arturus had agreed to sponsor Elijah’s party coming here. He was going to make a show of it, and try to turn the Celestial players against him.

  ”Guild? That wasn’t a guild you sent after us; that was an army. An army of bloodthirsty maniacs whose only goal in this game is to hunt and hurt other players.” Nicholas’ voice resounded through the chamber, his deep voice reverberating against the smooth stone walls.

  Mara lifted her hand to forestall any more arguing between the two men. “Enough,” her voice had the command of a seasoned warrior, “that may be discussed here, after we handle the true nature of why this council has been convened.”

  She took a step forward from the others on the plinth. “The Council of Celestials has elected me as its spokesman. Arturus, I assume you will represent yourself?”

  The man nodded; there was little choice for him. No other player could come here unless Daven used his sponsorship, and that was incredibly unlikely at this point.

  Mara turned towards the Babysitting Service. “Who will speak for your party?”

  They hadn’t expected to be forced to select a spokesperson, expecting this to be a much more informal event. To their continued shock, Benjamin took a step forward.

  ”I will. My name is Benjamin, and although here in-game I am a level twenty mage, in the real world I am a student of international law at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin.”

  Benjamin’s proclamation caught Elijah completely off-guard. He’d known that their mage was a student, but hadn’t expected him to be a law student. He didn’t really talk about his life outside of the game.

  Mara nodded her head, and the party didn’t protest; a sign of the trust that the group had fostered with each other over the last several weeks.

  Arturus laughed. “This farce has gone on long enough. This is a game, real world laws do not apply here. Only the law of the game. I have done nothing to break any law, either real world or in-game.”

  Mara shook her head. “That’s where you are wrong, Arturus. At the moment, this is not a game; we are stuck in here, and as such it must be treated as our only reality.”

  Elijah had to admit he hadn’t known what to expect when he’d first become aware of this trial. Seeing the Celestial players treating this so seriously eased the burden on his mind. He still didn’t trust them, not entirely, but this went a long way towards rebuilding some of the trust that had been lost when Mara had attempted to capture him and turn him over to Arturus.

  “Still, this trial is a farce; you intend to level real-world laws in a fictional universe. A fictional universe that will no doubt come crashing down around us as soon as the developers find a way to safely shut down the game from the outside.” Arturus was laughing now. “No. No, I do not recognize the council’s authority on this matter then. I will continue to play the game until such time as we can no longer do so.”

  Benjamin took the chance to cut into the man’s monologue. “There will be no outside interference. We have it on good authority, from a former developer, that Shardline can not patch the game from the outside in order to free us.”

  ”Yes,” Mara agreed, staring directly at Elijah. “The council has been made aware that you have a former developer in your party. As well as the fact that Elijah will have the ability to log everyone out once he reaches the Celestial-tier.”

  ”What?” Arturus hissed. His eyes widened and flicked from Mara to Elijah. “Drop your shield, Mara. I can get us out right now.”

  Arturus took a step forward towards the shield. Benjamin’s hands went from their relaxed position at his side to a casting pose while Nicholas and Bo moved to interpose themselves between Elijah and Arturus. The three Bitters dropped from Elijah’s body and began hissing and growling.

  But it was Daven who stopped Arturus. His sword flashed from its sheath quicker than the eye could track and pressed against Arturus’ throat.

  Arturus’ shoulders slumped as he felt the blade. “Look, I know what you all think of me, especially after this whole reveal that I’m the leader of the Reapers, but it isn’t who I am. I’m here playing a character, a part. If there’s a chance I can get everyone out of here, you need to give it to me.”

  The tension remained high, and the outcome hinged entirely on whether the Celestials trusted Arturus or if they thought this was just another act from him to gain a truly unbeatable power.

  Elijah thought he knew what the answer was to that question.

  And he’d do everything in his power to keep his ‘Reality Warp’ skill out of the hands of the mad Celestial.