From Phage’s office and under the most cloaked of circumstances, Dymir and Phage were whisked by subordinates to a helipad atop the tallest skyscraper the Nation had to offer. High above the map and from a seat in a million-dollar stealth helicopter he beheld the chaos from a bird’s eye view. A series of gliders and jets escorted them out of the city, engaging users who spotted the convoy and sought glory and rep through the scalp of a high-value target. The flight to the border with the Realm would be a while, and he had to ask, “Not that I mind, not yet anyway,” He said, “But how did you get my IRL phone number?”

“In some cases, the avatar and the user are more alike than most people would be comfortable with,” She replied, “I promise there will be no real-world repercussions for any of this.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” He dismissed the notion with a wave, “I think it’s only fair I know your name if you know mine.”

“Well, that’s the thing about life,” She told him, looking back out through the window, “Sometimes, it’s just not fair.” He watched her proceed to slide the side door of the chopper open and peer out into the darkness through an infrared rifle scope. Although all Dymir could see between the lights of the city below and the moonlight above was pitch, he was able to see her tracer round cut through the night and rupture the fuel tank on the jetpack a user was flying to discreetly follow them, “Don’t take it personally. I have to vet everyone involved with… this part of Hub life.”

“I’m starting to feel like there’s some of this you don’t consider just a game.”

“There’s some of it that isn’t.” She said, “The Hub has become a paradox that raises questions about our own existence and reality. We log in, move our avatars around for whatever endorphin we want to trip on that day. Do you know what happens to this body of yours when you log out?” Of course, he did, “They wander around with stripped-down NPC behaviour until they’re killed and respawn only when we log back in.” She gestured towards herself, “Not this one. I did not create Phage, not through a creation screen at least. She was born here, has a script, and what we could convincingly call a life.”

Vernon was never one to be consumed by the existential questions the Hub inspires by those both within and throughout. What Phage was telling him, however, seemed wanton, or cruel. In the end, however, she benefitted from being both an NPC and a user at the same time. Any onlooker would see their party and assume she was a bot recruited in town by a solo player farming obscure materials in an unpopulated zone. It was unsuspecting to say the least, a feature Dymir could definitely exploit, but surely would never be able to unlock or afford without too much time invested to make it at all worth it.

The helicopter landed in Castleton, a town that lived and breathed inside, you guessed it, the ruins of a massive castle. What looked to have been there for thousands of years was part of an update that fleshed out the lore surrounding the Nation’s earliest days. After landing at the rural airstrip outside of town, it was a bit of a drive to the border to the realm. As they approached the checkpoint, Dymir could feel his powers returning and his stats increasing in accordance with the new rules brought on by the Spire’s presence. At the same time, Phage’s eroded, proving his theory that she spent most of her time in the Nation, but in the end, her levels proved she was not a stranger to the Realm. She was a ranger with a high-proficiency in long-range flintlock rifles. There were no infrared scopes in on the other side, just old-fashioned, curved glass. Suffice to say, being a good sniper in the Realm did wonders for one’s proficiency back inside the Nation.

From the airstrip, Phage summoned an off-road buggy from her inventory that would let them skip redundant curves in the road. For much of the trip she was in chats and making calls to set up the commute so there wasn’t much time for conversation. Dymir didn’t mind; he was enthralled by the depth of organization that could be achieved by what most perceived to be just a game, “I suppose now would be a good time to discuss the plan?” She said while they were on a relatively flat patch of grassland.

Dymir brought up the map from his interface and shared it as a hologram floating over his hand. The ravine had several paths down on ledges and through caves. One in particular was highlighted which was not the most efficient path. “There’s a minotaur boss guarding an enchanted chest in a short cave I want to defeat first.”

Phage cast him a glance, then back when they hit a mound of dirt built up against a sharp boulder, sending them into a hundred-meter jump that landed them in a rough spin. Without stopping, she spun the steering wheel and locked the brakes until they were straight before punching the gas and putting them back on track. Vernon wanted to be sick, “You seem a little high-levelled for loot like that.”

“I don’t want the loot, I want the boss’ corpse to reanimate.” He said, reminding her of his forte, “This particular boss, ‘Tesseract the Baleful’ has one of the highest HP pools in the entire Realm. If I grease him up with enchantments and hexes, he’ll be able to soak up pretty much anything Trident has to offer other than the player-killer.”

“I plan to be up here,” She pointed to stone bridge that spanned two ledges halfway up the canyon, “I can cover you everywhere but inside the cave, so if you can draw Tesseract out, I promise he’ll go down quick.” She highlighted another ridge much closer to Trident’s lair, “My boots have a perk that makes me immune to fall damage, so I’ll drop to here and provide overwatch when you’re ready to push.”

Before long they were at that glowing line where the transition was complete. A golden drake waited on the other side for Phage; the winged mount that would span the gap to the canyon. Dymir had no mount, but was able to hover at a speed close to matching one. It was a fun talent he used often for travel as well as evasion. At the border was a special interface that allowed a user to switch loadouts, in this case, from a Nation build to a Realm one. Phage’s ranger attire was a ghillie suit made of dragonleather which meant she could take hits as well as she could dish them.

Fully crossed, the cry of a messenger hawk pierced the sounds of the calm, cool breeze. Without stopping, the bird looped overhead and dropped a scroll into her hand. It was an archaic method of communication whose only benefit was that the message was as private as they could get. Not even the developers were allowed to pry into this direct a message. “I hired a guild to drive out other users so no one can jump in on the fight, let alone know its even happening.” She met his gaze with eyes that glimmered with light from the real world, or even beyond. The effect made Dymir doubt his existence as Vernon, if even for just a moment. He shook his head to ground his senses and found himself feeling aftershocks of being so throttled.

After fast-travelling to the nearest waypoint, they crossed the reddish sands of a desert’s edge to the sharp dip leading into the valley. There was a trading post near the entrance where just then a pair of users were being harassed by a gang, no doubt from the guild Phage hired to clear the area. She broke off to speak to them while Dymir approached the edge of the desert to look down upon the valley. He hadn’t been there in some time, way back when he needed minotaur tails for an old cloak he’d long since made obsolete. Until just then, he realized he was wearing it back when he won his gem from that fateful event dungeon that made him famous. Famous enough to meet Phage and be back under much different circumstances.

He loved the Hub just as much as anyone could and consumed its content whether logged in or not. He watched videos from streamers and tuned his builds using apps on his phone, even bought, sold and traded on the virtual market. Despite all this, Vernon recognized everything as just a game with a little more. Hub obsession was a real thing that crippled its addicts outside the servers. But all this with Phage, from the secrecy to the implications behind the scope of what he’d signed up for… it was the first time he truly wondered how blurred the lines between here and there had truly become.

“The rogues tell me the area is for the most part clear but we may run into some stragglers being ushered out.” Phage noted as she joined him at the view, proceeding to take the rifle off her shoulder and snipe the gem-encrusted weakpoint on the forehead of a stone golem hundreds of meters below them, “You look pensive.”

“I was just thinking about how things come around full circle in here, just like in real life.” He began prepping his enchantments, assuming they were ready to leave.

“When you’ve been around as long as I have,” Phage assured him, “You learn to accept cycles coming to completion as much as they repeat themselves.”

Continue to Part 3-3: Boss Fight