Merrick grabbed onto the window ledge, fingers cutting on the broken glass. That was the least of his worries. An explosion rocked one of the castles near the center of the scene. The pristine blue sky turned a violent gray and orange. A swell of energy rose from the center of the explosion and… changed the world around it.
It was as if it had been terraformed. Merrick felt like he was watching two different code streams merge after a developer decided to say, we can fix it in prod. The explosion turned the ground yellow, like waves of wheat or a glassy burned field. From the waves and fields, new towers and castles appeared; even a new mountain formed at the heart of the explosion.
Once the ground settled, Molly asked, "What was that?"
Alex answered quickly, "The second system just came on line. The new batch of users will be joining the game starting tomorrow. We might as well consider Xerxes lost."
"I thought you said that this wouldn't launch until you got back?"
Alex shook her head, "I also mentioned that without me there, Mouseion will do whatever it takes to strip resources from this minefield."
Rat asked, "What about…?"
"We go home. I'll try to find Xerxes through the system but his body has to be somewhere if he was controlling that avatar."
"No. I meant what about this thing."
Alex looked at Merrick, "Ah, it's a golem holding a Player's consciousness as they play Dungeons Below."
Merrick and Rat replied at the same time, "What?"
"Created by the system." Alex focused on Merrick, "I take it you are Merrick. So what are you? A Sorcerer, another Wizard, some kind of magical hack?"
"I'm a Mage." Merrick answered reflexively but his eyes drifted off into the distance behind Alex. Now that he was looking away from the explosion, the towers in the distance in the other direction seemed strange.
"A Mage. Of course… No formal training, that's why you selected the same Class when you joined the game. Figured you would wing it just like in reality? Did you think that we wouldn't catch you before you exploited the game?"
Merrick missed most of what Alex was saying. The towers in the distance, over the edge of a nearby cliff, were finally coming into focus for him. They were not fantasy towers at all. They were contraptions of concrete and glass and steel. They were familiar. Merrick had stared at them from a park near his apartment often. They were the towers of the city's Financial District.
He looked back at Alex, Molly, and Rat only to ask, "Is that…?"
Alex realized her mistake. She tapped on her phone quickly, "Error experienced, System call: cut connection for Merrick's avatar."
Rat was giggling and Molly was shaking his head sadly. Merrick tried to ask another question but then everything went black and he felt the cold hard floor of the play area in his apartment behind his back. Slowly light came back onto his VR Headset, two words blinking slowly at the center: CONNECTION INTERRUPTED.
After he removed his headset, Merrick felt like throwing up. Light poured in from the window to his side. His mind was racing at a million thoughts a second. He looked up at his ceiling and took a deep breath.
Nothing seemed certain, Merrick reached out with his hand and did something strange. He only did it to prove that he was just thinking crazy thoughts, to ease his racing mind. Unfortunately, it worked. Merrick summoned Spell Stealer into his hand.
At the same time, an email came in that Merrick would not read for a few hours. It read:
Dear Valued Customer,
Unfortunately it has come to the attention of Mouseion Entertainment, the company that produced and manages the game Dungeons Below, that you were accidentally granted administrative access to the system. Fortunately nothing that you did put the game at risk of crashing or yourself at risk of a lawsuit. Unfortunately, as this access will have tainted your experience with the game, as well as make it nearly impossible to scale with players during our new expansion, your account has been reset.
We understand the frustration at losing all the progress you made even though you cleared one of the game's most difficult dungeons. However, to keep the integrity of the game, we cannot award you the Dungeon Clear for that dungeon or any of the rewards, advantages, or accolades of having cleared it. Instead, we will credit your account with a free license to rejoin Dungeons Below and a considerable gift that will be sent to your avatar upon re-joining.
We hope to see you soon.
V/R - A.Drea - Head of R&D
Mouseion Entertainment