The Hall contained a recovery ward, and once we returned home we made straight for it. In response to our entry, a new True NPC was generated. Tobias, the doctor. After an initial passive aggressive comment about being a doctor and not a veterinarian (which again highlighted the lack of originality in this game world), Tobias went to work on healing Griff properly.

  In the process, he shooed us out of the ward, and we made our way to the common area, in the chaotic state that it was left in.

  I surveyed the remains of the room, the open wall looking out to Durrilan proper, as the sounds of chaos subsided, replaced already with the sounds of construction as the townspeople went to work repairing the damage to the city.

  Meph and Oli were arguing loudly, but I only caught snippets. Oli had worked out the Trespasser was using some sort of teleport technique, and how the mob telegraphed it. He’d used his own Misty Step to beat the Trespasser to his destination, the attacker materialising in the same space as his axe, which is what had finally killed him.

  Some distant compartmentalised part of myself was impressed by how clever that was as a tactic, noting Oli was improving in his in action scenario assessment and planning.

  My eyes were drawn to the remains of my coffee mug, shattered on the floor next to a broken chair. The quiet existence I’d come to, if not rely on, but expect, was gone.

  “…this is way too far! They can’t push me into something by destroying the city, I won’t stand for it,” Oli was saying, voice filled with indignation.

  “What, do you think you’re going to complain to a manager, Oli? You may have been some big shot trillionaire in the mortal world, but none of that counts for shit here. You’re not in charge of what happens, any more than I am,” Meph shot back, not venomous, but apparently stressed enough not to hold back.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, focusing on my breathing, and the low whistling of air rushing by.

  “Sending a fuckin’ boss to push me around isn’t gonna—”

  “Except it wasn’t after you,” I said, opening my eyes again. “The Trespasser was targeting me.”

  Meph and Oli went silent. They both looked at me, as if waiting for me to blow up too.

  “You weren’t going to go on this damn quest, so they were willing to get rid of the thing they saw as keeping you here. They were going to get rid of me…and instead, they got Griff.”

  Meph shook his head. “No, no that wouldn’t be it. It wouldn’t serve any purpose to, to—”

  “Wipe me out? Why not? I’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass the whole time I’ve been here, and for whatever reason they want Oli off on this quest. Not a quest, this one,” I rounded on Meph. “What aren’t you telling us, Meph? I know you know something. I know you well enough by now to tell when you’re keeping something from me.”

  Meph leaned back. “There’s a lot I’m keeping from you,” he said slowly. “But that’s because I can’t tell you, or you don’t need to know. I swear, I don’t know why this—”

  “Don’t!” I snapped. “Don’t lie to me. Before our home got blown to bits, you said something about Xandra telling us something, and you were surprised. Then there’s the weird inconsistencies in the world, the enemies that are either higher than they should be, or giving more experience or loot than they should be, or being wildly easy to demolish by a solo Player, no matter how quickly he’s getting the hang of things. What is going on, and I want the truth, all of it.”

  “I-,” Meph stuttered.

  “It’s fine, Mephistopheles. We’ll tell them. We’ve made a number of concessions for these two already, what’s one more.”

  We all turned towards the familiar voice, but the sight was not something I expected to see at all.

  Behind our group, floating in the air amongst the ruins of the Guild Hall common area, was a small woman who had to be about six or seven inches tall. She was held aloft by glittering gossamer wings that moved so fast they were almost just a faint blueish glow behind her tiny, frail looking form. She had spiky red hair, her skin an odd pale greenish hue, making her seem almost plant-like. A glittering, skin tight bodysuit clung to her, so close that at first I thought it was her skin. Her eyes were sharp, almost too sharp and large for her face, like a distorted image.

  “Xandra?” I asked.

  “Yes, this is my in-game form on Purgatoria, Russell. Let’s get this over with. I don’t like being in this material formation any longer than I need to. I’d suggest you sit down, but,” she gestured with her hands at the scene of carnage around us. “But yes, there is a reason for the inconsistencies, and why this quest is important, but I assure you, it’s not as grandiose as you’re thinking.”

  I glared back at her silently. She harrumphed, shrugged, and then went into it.

  “There is actually a…problem. With creation itself. With the Pleroma.”

  I laughed. “‘Not grandiose’? You’re telling us there’s a problem with all of existence!”

  “What kind of problem?” Oli asked.

  Xandra coolly looked at him. “I don’t mean to be rude, Oliver, but you’re not as up to speed with the all the ins and outs of the true nature of reality as Russell is. I’d rather you refrain from interrupting, he can fill in the gaps for you later. Though I stress, to all of you, you are not, under any circumstances, to relay any of this information to other Players, or mortal world-born NPCs or anyone, on pain of immediate expulsion from Purgatoria.”

  “‘Immediate expulsion?’ You’d kill us?” I said, shocked. For all the talk of the Divine and Infernals respecting the souls themselves that Meph gave, the idea that they would destroy us for letting something slip sent an electric buzz through me. Surprise, yes, but also…intrigue?

  “More than that. We’d obliterate you. No moving on, no Pleroma, no nothing. Or rather, all nothing. You will simply cease to exist, considered too dangerous to continue to be part of the fabric of creation,” she said this flatly, never taking her eyes off of us. “We have temporarily made this area a complete blindspot from all observers, to ensure that this knowledge doesn’t leave this moment here.”

  Silence prevailed again, the only noise distant hammering from Durrilan.

  “The problem,” she continued, “is that the stream of souls moving from the mortal realm into the heart of the Pleroma has…slowed. Not ceased. But not feeding into the heart as it should. More and more souls are winding up here, in fact, and this cannot be allowed to continue.

  “We are aware that Meph has explained some of the theories regarding the heart of the Pleroma,” she said, throwing an admonishing glance towards the tiefling, “So I will allow you to consider what the grander repercussions of starving the Pleroma of new souls might be. But suffice it to say, it is having an effect. That extends to the game world of Purgatoria too, with some of the stitches in its creation…coming loose. This is likely what is causing the…eccentricities in the game now. It may even explain how Oliver here was able to add you to his party, Russell.”

  “So…whatever is at the heart of the Pleroma is being…starved of new souls, new information, whatever it uses us for is not getting to where it needs to be, and now the nature of this manufactured reality is coming apart?” It all felt so big, and there was still some big mysterious gaps here, it was hard to make it all fit. I sensed that I was either missing something, or it was still being withheld.

  “Nothing quite so drastic. As yet. But, Russell, I need you to understand just how big of a concern this is,” Xandra said, tilting her head. “If it is allowed to continue, if it gets worse, it is more than just this level of reality that will feel the effects. Eventually, the material realm of mortal existence could be affected too.”

  “The world could get, what, damaged too?” Oli said, eyes going wide.

  “Oh yes, so it really is imperative that you go on this quest, Oliver. You have tarried here for far too long. We need the Players to get to where they need to go, which is the heart of the Pleroma, and if the natural path is no longer working, then this will need to be it. So the Board has decided that if getting rid of one Early Leaver, or his pet, will get you to do what you are actually here to do, then so be it.”

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  My hand shot out before I could even think, and faster than Xandra could react. My fingers wrapped around her tiny body, and I felt myself squeeze. The tiny fey gasped in shock and pain, wriggling against my palm. Her face twisted in what looked like panic, or an anxiety attack.

  “Don’t. You. Dare,” I hissed. “You can use me as much as you want. Apparently, it’s all I’ve ever been good for, propping up everyone else’s stories. But if you think you can just use Oli, or throw out Griff like they’re just consumables, so help me, I will find a way to rip these wings right off your body.”

  “Ugh, get…off of me! Not…my…choice!” Xandra gasped.

  I flicked my wrist, letting the fey go. She stumbled in the air before righting herself. She raked her fingers across her skin, leaving deep, red marks in lines as she scraped and scraped away at her arms and legs, breath moving fast and fitfully. It was like she was having a full blown breakdown, trying to rip the skin off of her. Eventually, she calmed down.

  “Filthy matter,” she muttered. Then she shook her head and stared at me, her eyes taking on a hard edge underneath the shine of tears. “It wasn’t me who sent the mob, I spoke out against it. But the Board cannot allow delay to continue. H…They want Oli to move on. The flow of souls to the Pleroma must continue, and they will take any action necessary to ensure it does.” Her eyes cast over to Meph and flashed briefly. The tiefling stood open-mouthed, but remembered himself and his face hardened to stoic and unbothered. “I hope you realise just what you have caused here,” she directed at him out loud, before looking back to us. “The quest must be completed. Oliver will be expected to take the chalice, and make the next step on his journey. You will not be saving the world, or existence, you will just be fulfilling what you need to do, your purpose, just as we all do.”

  She looked hard one last time at Meph, and then her body started to dissolve into motes of light that drifted away.

  “No more delays. Get on with it,” her voice drifted on the breeze, and then she was gone.

  With the common area in disarray, we moved to my bedroom to sit and decompress. Meph dug out his bean bag, that miraculously hadn’t been destroyed, and dragged it in with him, slumping down into it in the corner of the room as I sat at the edge of my bed.

  Oli trailed his finger along a shelf of my infinite bookcase, his eyes wandering all over the room, taking in everything, lingering momentarily over this item or that decoration. Finally, he let out a chuckle.

  “It’s just everything I imagined it would be like,” he said after me and Meph looked at him.

  “You, err, have imagined my bedroom?” I said.

  “Well, uh, I mean—I thought someday we might hang, like, not that we aren’t hanging right now, and not like this—and not like anything else, or whatever,” the flustered ogre said, cheeks deepening in colour.

  “As adorable as this awkwardness is,” Meph languidly said, head leaning back as he sank into his beanbag. “I have to assume you have questions about what you’ve just learned.”

  I pushed further onto the bed, lifting my legs to sit cross legged. “Questions? Tons. Do they matter right now? Not especially.”

  That earned a raised eyebrow from Meph, as he lifted his head. Oli settled into a chair by my desk, sitting in it with the back of the chair in front of him, arms crossed around the headrest.

  “Obviously, why the recently deceased aren’t moving directly onto the Pleroma is an intriguing mystery, and yeah, I have theories and questions all about it. It also answers some things, like how come Tahlia wound up here in the first place. But none of that matters, does it? The simple fact is, we have to go on this mission now.”

  “No pressure or anything,” Oli mumbled. “I just have to cease to exist or become one with the heart of creation to save all of existence or whatever..” He sounded like a petulant child that had just been told to finish his greens or he won’t get screen time, but it was oddly endearing.

  “Don’t raise up your importance level in this, Oli. It’s not just you, all humans have to. It’s your purpose, what is meant for you at the end of your life, and who knows what that truly means. You all need to do this, you’re not some chosen one, kid,” Meph said flatly.

  “Then why does it have to be Oli? Tahlia is going, she could get this chalice. In fact, what if she does before we even get there?” I asked.

  “Then there’ll be a new quest that pops up for you. You go off on this adventure, and if not this reward, some other will generate and you’ll need to go on to that one,” Meph looked over towards me sadly. “You could be gone a very long time.”

  I knew this was mainly directed at me, because if all went as it was supposed to, Oli wouldn’t be coming back. At all.

  “That still doesn’t really answer the question though, does it…” I said after a lengthy silence. Meph looked directly at me. “The why of it. Why this quest? Why push us so hard that they were willing to destroy one or all of us to make it happen?”

  Meph lowered his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “And I don’t think we’ll find out any time soon. Xandra is not likely to come down to this place again, and I reckon she won’t snatch you away again either. You crossed a line when you touched her, at least to her.”

  I didn’t believe him. Not all of it.

  “Meph. I know there’s something you’re not saying. I’ll respect it. But if it turns out to be something that gets Griff or Oli hurt, or worse…” I trailed off, not sure what I could even say. How could I threaten Meph? And not just because he was an Infernal, eternal being, but because he’d become my friend.

  Meph looked between me and Oli with sad eyes. I saw a pain in there so huge it eclipsed him for a moment, and I realised the aloof, sardonic nature was always a mask.

  “I promise you, if I could tell you everything, I would. Already I’ve said too much, and I’ll no doubt have to pay for it down the line. But I promise, I am on your side.”

  I unfurled my legs, the sound of the rustle of the bedsheet the only noise in the room. I slowly rose, Meph and Oli both watching me the whole time. Walking over, I hunched next to Meph and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “That I believe.”

  We spent the next couple of hours planning for mine and Oli’s new expedition out into Purgatoria. Meph helped me get a grip on my new stats, and potential bonuses and benefits to be aware of. We talked about what little we knew about what to expect on this journey, and the plot, if any, that may be part of it.

  I considered asking Meph about the Highest King, but I decided not to push it.

  Eventually, we slid into silence. Exhaustion began to fray at our edges, and the ability to just sit in quiet, surrounded by each other, became comforting.

  “So why do you think we’re not going direct to the Pleroma anymore?” Oli said eventually, breaking the silence of the room.

  “Hm?”

  “You said you had theories?”

  I sat up again from where I’d been lying on the bed. It was probably for the best, despite not really needing it anymore, I felt sleep trying to tug away at me.

  “It’s too early to tell, I think. But my best guess is whatever connected us to the Pleroma in the first place has been severed. What that is, or how, I have no idea,” I shrugged. “Do you have any idea, Meph?”

  The tiefling shook his head. “We have all the information available but we cannot parse it out. That’s not what we do. That, like imagination and creation, is very much a you thing.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Remember what I said about us never having the ability to truly create, unlike you mortals? The same kind of goes for putting the pieces of information together to come up with a new outcome, in this case an answer,” Meph sat upright, slowly gesturing with his hands to move the idea along. “After all, for you humans, a lot of the answers are only able to be found because you imagined solutions and did the work to then see if what you imagined was true. With no imagination, we can’t do that.

  “Take Oli’s somewhat offensive comparison from before,” Meph thumbed over at Oli, who looked stricken and then immediately sheepish. “With the eternal beings being like your world’s AI. The I in that name, Intelligence, is a misnomer - those programs or machines aren’t thinking. They just aggregate all the information that is pumped into them and regurgitate what it works out is the likely solution. They don’t feel, or experiment or learn and grow. We’re kinda like that, we are and exist in all the information of the mortal existence, accumulated. But we cannot come up with new ideas, so if you don’t know, we don’t know.”

  I tilted my head. “But you said you had some ideas and theories about what was at the heart of the Pleroma…”

  Meph looked at me. “I did say that, didn’t I…” he was not panicked, but it was like he just realised he had been caught out. “Okay, we do have the ability to build ideas, but it’s on what mortal imagination and ideas would come up with about comparable entities or situations. But because you don’t have the answer to this exact version, we don’t have a concrete answer either.”

  Quiet fell over us again. I wondered if that was all true, or if half-truths were sprinkled in there, how much of it was lies, and why would he need to do it? Still, it did also make a kind of sense, as much as anything in this fucked up afterlife did now.

  A knock at the door startled all of us, and we spun towards the sound. Slowly, the door opened a crack, and Tobias, the True NPC doctor, popped his head into the room.

  “I just stopped by to let you know, the patient has made a full recovery,” he said, before pushing the door wide and letting Griff come bounding into the room and pouncing up into my arms. “And despite my most assertive recommendations for further bedrest, the patient insisted on coming to see you all immediately.”

  I felt hot tears spring forth as I pushed my forehead against Griff’s own. He pushed back, repeatedly brushing away just to push back again, purring loudly as his feathery fur tickled against me. I let out a wobbly laugh.

  “I am so glad to see you,” I said through happy sobs. Meph and Oli both came over to join us on the bed, each finding a patch on the grifflet to stroke him.

  At some point, Tobias left, the door still open. Whether he walked off, or disappeared as he was no longer required, I couldn’t say. I was too wrapped up in my life raft in this existence being alive, well and eager for snuggles.

  Time passed, and I managed to control myself as a more somber thought returned to me. I brushed Griff’s head, and scratched behind his ear as I held his gaze.

  “It is so good to see you, buddy,” I whispered. “But me and Oli have to go away for a while. And I don’t know when I’m going to be back. I’m going to need you to stay here, with Meph, and keep him safe for me, yeah? I don’t think it’ll be a hard job, so please just stay safe, and well, and I will be back for you as soon as possible.”

  Griff looked almost like he understood everything I said. He turned to look at Oli.

  “I—” I choked back a sob. “I dunno, buddy. I hope so. But he’s got important things to do, and I gotta help him.”

  Griff leaned over and butted Oli’s hand. The man smiled, not saying a word, but I could see the light playing off the wetness of his eyes.