Chapter 28: Lissy Flamesborn

  System Initialization...

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  Neural Link Established!

  connection established!

  loading parameters complete!

  Starting system now...

  [Welcome, Player, you are now entering the World of Xantia.]

  Synchronizing neural pattern with Avatar core...

  Sensory threshold: 82% calibrated.

  [Environment Loaded.]

  Connection Stable — Latency: 3ms

  Lissy opened her eyes. Finally, she was back home again. She stood up from the couch she had been lying on, the same one she had used to log out days ago. The room around her was warm and opulent, the flames in the fireplace flickering softly against the trophies on the walls, heads and horns of eldritch monsters she and the others had hunted together.

  “Hey! Anyone here? I’m back, guuuuuuys!” she shouted, grinning.

  No answer.

  She sighed and flicked her wrist, pulling up her status menu. The holographic interface shimmered in front of her eyes. It was 3:22 a.m. (CPT—Central Pangrea Time). Way too early.

  When you were logged into Xantia, time flowed at double speed, though it felt completely normal from inside the game. That meant you could play a full twenty-four hours in Xantia and only lose twelve in real life. Of course, the developers had built in plenty of safety measures. The neural link constantly monitored brain waves and physical needs. If you got hungry, thirsty, or even needed to rest, the system would ping you with a reminder. You could ignore it three times, but after that, it would force a logout. Three forced logouts in a row meant a five-day soft ban, a rule to prevent “full dive” accidents.

  Lissy puffed out her cheeks. “They knew I was logging in at three-thirty... did they seriously go without me?”

  She opened her friend list.

  Favorites:

  Matzi best vamp — online

  Kaido da smurf — online

  Best Elf Clara — online

  Ma best gurl Lily — offline

  Tomy Gun — offline

  “Uh-huh... why are Tom and Lily not on? Don’t tell me they forgot!” she groaned. “I was only gone three days! Three!” She kicked the leg of the couch, then stalked out of the room.

  The heavy wooden door opened into a corridor that led toward the main hall of the Guild. Her steps echoed faintly as she passed beneath banners and relics, each one from a past raid. The great emblem of [Doomsday] hung from the center arch—black and crimson, stitched with their guild crest: a burning crown encircled by three runes.

  “Heeeey! Matzzz? Claraaa? Where are you guys?” Her voice bounced back from the walls, unanswered. “Pff. Don’t tell me you’re not even in the guild hall, you traitors.”

  She stomped her foot, annoyed. “All because of my dumb brother begging me to lead that stupid scout camp…” she muttered under her breath.

  With a flick of her hand, she opened her message log, scrolling past guild announcements and the usual event spam until she found the one from yesterday.

  [From: Lilithia Nocturne]

  To: Lissy Flamesborn

  Title: We killed itttttttt!

  Mooooaaah Lissy I’m so sad you weren’t here but we did it! Hehehe we finished the raid of Mawdrath, the Endless Hunger today after nine hours!!!! I reached Top 700 WW!!! (And Matz Top 1000 *cough*) Also, you won’t believe what I dropped!!! I hope you’re fine in the woods alone with a bunch of babies hahaha ? See ya soon.

  Lissy closed the message with a long sigh. “Unbelievable... I leave for three days, and they clear Mawdrath without me?”

  She scrolled through the rest of her inbox, but nothing explained where everyone had gone.

  So, she opened the chat window and typed quickly:

  To [Lord Sucker]:

  Matz I know you’re online! Where are you? Did you start another raid without me?! You knew I was coming back today!

  After hitting send, she threw her arms up dramatically, then dropped down to the floor and crossed her legs.

  “Fine, I’ll just wait right here,” she grumbled, pulling open her inventory menu to start sorting her gear.

  Minutes passed in silence, only the faint crackling of the fireplace keeping her company. Then, her message interface blinked. She had a reply from [Lord Sucker].

  [Lord Sucker]:

  Lissy, didn’t you check your phone? We wrote you... We’re in Lily’s mansion right now. You should come. Kaito and I are trying to calm down Clara, but she’s close to her second forced logout.

  Lissy froze. Her phone? No, of course she hadn’t. The battery had died during the camping trip, and she had plugged it in as soon as she got home, but she hadn’t even looked at it before logging in.

  Still, something about that message made her stomach twist.

  Why would they be at Lily’s mansion?

  And Clara—a forced logout? That only happened when someone’s stress levels spiked dangerously high.

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  Her heart dropped. “Oh god,” she whispered.

  She jumped to her feet and ran across the guild hall. The long banners swayed behind her as she sprinted toward the teleportation chamber. Inside, the air shimmered with faint magic circles carved into the floor, each one linked to a different stronghold or player-owned base.

  She didn’t hesitate, and found the one labeled [Lilithia’s Mansion] in a heartbeat, stepped onto the glowing sigil, and shouted, “Activate!”

  The world bent in light.

  A heartbeat later, she was standing in another teleportation chamber, this one carved in polished marble, its center glowing faint red. The warmth of the guild hall was gone, replaced by the stillness of Lily’s mansion.

  Then she heard a soft, broken sound. Someone was crying.

  Lissy followed the echo through the corridor until it opened into the main hall. At the center, in front of Lily’s throne, an elf girl was on her knees, trembling. A dwarf knelt beside her, trying to comfort her with slow, awkward pats on the shoulder. Nearby stood a tall man in black armor, his skin pale as ivory—Matz, the vampire.

  He turned as soon as Lissy entered.

  “What happened?” she asked, breathless.

  The elf looked up, “Lissy...?”

  Matz walked over slowly and pulled her into a quiet embrace. His voice came low, almost hollow. “Lily... is dead.”

  Lissy stared at him. For a moment, the words didn’t reach her. They just floated there, meaningless, until they finally sank in. Her mind went white. The hall, the firelight, the others—it all blurred away.

  “What?.. how—”

  “She was shot,” Matz said softly. “Yesterday. An armed robbery. Tomy sent the news article in our group chat.”

  Lissy’s lips parted, but no sound came. Her chest felt tight, her hands cold.

  “Oh...” was all she managed.

  Then, a faint ping cut through the silence.

  [System Message: Warning — unhealthy stress detected. We advise immediate logout. First warning.]

  Lissy didn’t move. She just stood there, staring at the empty throne where Lily used to sit, the glow of her interface flickering in her eyes.

  After a few deep breaths, she calmed down, and finally walked over to Clara and sat down beside her. The elf’s shoulders still trembled from quiet sobs, and for a while, no one said anything. Then Kaito joined them, setting his axe down with a dull thud, and Matz followed, folding his long arms as he lowered himself to the ground too.

  The four of them stayed there for hours, talking quietly. They shared stories about Lily, the time she had glitched through a boss wall and soloed it by accident, the time she had built an entire guild festival ground in secret, the countless nights they had spent exploring or just sitting around joking. No one was in the mood to do anything else.

  Before logging off, they decided they would hold a farewell for Lily, a proper one, once everyone who had known her could come.

  At some point, Clara’s voice started fading mid-sentence. Her avatar flickered, and a moment later, she disappeared.

  [System Message: Your friend “Clarathiel Nuara” forcibly logged out due to stress threshold breach.]

  Kaito was next to go. He said he couldn’t take it anymore and logged off quietly. Matz stayed a bit longer, sitting there in silence, before he too stood up and said, “See you tomorrow, maybe.” Then he vanished in a soft shimmer of light.

  And just like that, Lissy was alone.

  The hall of Lily’s mansion stretched wide and empty around her. She walked slowly toward the throne and sat down. From there, she could see everything. Lily had decorated her home down to the smallest detail, the guild banners, the torches, even the now-dim teleportation crystal. The quiet felt wrong to Lissy; only a week ago, this same place had been full of life. More than fifty players had crowded the hall for the guild’s Halloween party—laughing, dancing, showing off their costumes.

  Now it was silent. And for Lissy, that silence felt wrong. She couldn’t quite believe it had really happened. It felt just like every other day, so how could Lily be gone?

  Lily hadn’t just been her best friend, she had been like a sister. They’d met online ten years ago, when they were still teenagers. Even though they lived hundreds of miles apart, they’d shared almost everything. Birthdays, exams, stupid fights, dreams. Lissy had grown up with her.

  The mage sitting on the throne bit her lip, a habit she also had in real life, though here it was only a visual quirk.

  But somehow, sitting there, she felt Lily close. Like she was still around, just unseen, maybe smiling at her from somewhere above the game world.

  Eight hours had passed in real life. Sixteen in Xantia. She knew she should log out; her neural sync timer had already begun its slow pulse of warning. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. How was she supposed to just go back to her apartment, to her classes, to the same world Lily had left behind? How could she sit through lectures knowing Lily would never attend hers again?

  Her thoughts blurred.

  For a moment, the world around her shimmered. The transparent menus floating in front of her eyes blinked, then vanished completely. Lissy blinked hard and sat up straight.

  “What the—” she muttered.

  The distortion lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to make her skin crawl. She looked around the hall, everything seemed fine again. The torches flickered normally, the interface returned, and the room was as it had been.

  “Probably a bug,” she said under her breath, though her voice was quieter than before.

  She opened her logout menu, but before she could confirm, the world shimmered again, this time sharper. The light twisted around the edges of her vision, and shapes began to form in front of her.

  Six hooded figures knelt before the throne. Their outlines were vague, translucent like smoke. She couldn’t make out faces or details, just shapes, cloaked and still.

  Her breath caught.

  Then, just as suddenly, they vanished. The hall was empty again.

  “God, the game’s really nuts today,” Lissy muttered, shaking her head. She tapped the logout command.

  The system chimed softly.

  [Logging out… please remain still.]

  The world dissolved into light, and Lissy felt the pull of reality returning.

  But for a heartbeat—right before everything went dark—she could have sworn she heard a voice.

  Something that sounded like Lily’s.

  “You may rise, worms…”

  Then she woke in her own bed, back in reality.

  For a moment, she just lay there, staring at the ceiling. The faint hum of her VRMMORPG gear still echoed in her ears. The transition from Xantia’s world to her quiet, dimly lit room felt heavier than usual—like she had left something behind that shouldn’t have stayed there.

  Slowly, she reached up and pulled the headset off, the neural pads peeling softly from her temples. The world outside the visor felt cold.

  She sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. Her muscles ached, the kind of dull stiffness that came after hours of immersion. She stretched her arms, rolled her shoulders, and then stopped.

  Only then did she realize that tears were running down her cheeks. They weren’t digital anymore. They were warm and real. She wiped at them with the back of her hand, but they kept coming.

  Lissy stood and walked to her desk, the faint morning light just beginning to slip through the curtains. Her phone was charging beside her keyboard, its screen still dark. She ignored it and reached instead for the photo frame standing next to it.

  It was a picture of her and Lily, taken last summer, when Lissy had finally visited her in person for the first time. They were both grinning wide, Mickey ears on their heads, the prominent castle shining behind them.

  Her thumb brushed over Lily’s face.

  “Don’t leave me alone…” she whispered.

  The words barely left her lips, swallowed by the quiet hum of her room.