Six years ago, the Hub changed forever at the same time it began forever changing the day the Spire introduced itself to the Hub. The abnormal structure stood magnitudes higher than the highest mountain range rendered anywhere inside the plane. Its introduction was the most viewed video ever to take place within the Hub, with everyone who was there knowing exactly where they were when it arrived. After a warship breached from the Sky Zone to where the Nation and the Realm met, where it landed, it began to change. Since then, the model for this unknown, untraceable vessel, was warped into something that looked to be the confluence of all three of the Hub’s iterations. As the first amalgam, it appeared over time to be something that was not of any of the zones – its own thing, alien and new.

The inside redefined the experience for those who logged into the digital realm to game. Unlike other zones, there were no restrictions on skills determined by the borders between them. No loadout was too cheap, and the meta was based on playing outside rules; it was a boon for potential. Only inside the Spire could a magic-using gunner fight side by side with a necromancer backed up by a team of futuristic drones. It promoted crossplay among the distinct experiences offered to the average user with an actual way to flex those milestones in concert. As each zone loosely represented the past, present and future of This Earth, the Spire was where it all came together. It was heavily populated by farmers looking to push the limit of what the algorithms had in terms of standing against them, and the algorithms, as usual, did not disappoint.

While there were some monsters exclusive to the Spire, it was the makeups of the mobs that made it so thrilling. Now, a party could be blindsided by a contingent of cybernetic centaurs while engaging a team of robots adept in lightning magic. Pairings of creatures never meant to coexist made for frightening battles with dynamic combinations that flowed in real-time, and on either end of the fight. It was the most fun most players had, especially on the earlier levels, where things were more about giving the user a taste of what was to come. Upper levels were another story. Both the monsters and the NPCs were much more advanced; stronger, smarter, complex. For the longest time it was assumed next-gen content was tested by privileged users who earned the right by making it this far. Knowing the source of their evolution radiated from the peak made even more sense for those in the know.

Throughout the expansive floors, there were settlements carved out inside the Spire. Here flourished accommodations for travellers who needed to restock or rest. Merchant players thrived here, charging inflated prices to rich users who understood the middleman fee all too well. Refuges thinned out the higher a team ventured, most sharply after the midway point. There, however, was not only the last haven before they grew few and far between, but also the largest of all. It was called Midpoint for a reason, because it was the halfway mark before things got seriously ugly. It was here Phage told the party to gather, urging them to make the journey on their own before this point.

Dymir found a group easily and after a few hours, found himself wandering the streets of Midpoint. His experience in the Spire was limited, with runs that almost always fell short of the high floor, but there was one time where it did not. Just once did he make it to the top and beat the Blackest Knight with a team that could not lose. To think, his experience fighting Sol’s wife went exactly as it had for anyone else, back when he was a nobody and so was she. Before logging on for the run, he watched his recording of that day to note his build and the team’s tactics. It was then he realized that the healer in that session was the same Phage had recruited for this attempt. He found her at the rendezvous point, a bridge that united the two halves of the town, split by a river made of pure, white plasma. “I knew you’d be here first,” She told him, “I just didn’t know if you’d get here before me or not.”

“I saw some of the others on my way,” Dymir said, “Is everyone here?”

“Most, with the rest well on their way.” She replied, “It’s almost time.” The ambition was bleeding through her body from the user itself, “I’ll never fight so hard as I will for this.”

“Me too.” He assured her, “I’ve thought about all the different things that can happen at the end of this, and there’s too many outcomes I don’t like.” Phage nodded, then looked to him when she realized he was waiting for her to do so, “I want to talk to her.” Her eyes narrowed, but he could tell she was considering it, “There’s time.”

“I get it.” She shrugged, “Ten minutes.” Phage blinked to when that presence ripped away to where it came from, leaving her to collect her senses. She leaned her back against his chest and they leaned on the rail, taking a quiet moment to be together. “So, we’re here,” She said, finally, “I’m not even involved, but I’m nervous. How are you doing?”

“I’m excited.” He assured her, even though they both knew he was also nervous. What Phage had to experience, Dymir had to witness, and the hand he was dealt had to be played at the perfect moment, lest the user know of it. “We both know how bad this can get,” He rubbed his fingers against hers between his hands, “I just wanted to see you one more time before it’s all over.”

“To say goodbye, just in case?” She wondered, but he kissed her to reply, as if to say no, he wanted to see her to charge him up, to inspire him to pull it off. They both knew her assumption was also true – there were several ways Phage may not make it through the end of the run. Neither would deny that. They spent the next minutes together looking up to the summit, where everyone’s fate would be decided. Abruptly, she shrugged him off, as clearly the user was back in control, “Okay, enough of that,” She said, “Let’s focus.”

And focus they did. When the party was formed, there was little time for introduction. Tactics had already been discussed on the message board, so everyone knew their roles and specked for them. The whole of the town, from users to NPC watched their party approach the circular gate made of alien gears as it undid itself to let them through. This was a group with ambition to not just win the Spire, but dominate it. It was known throughout the Hub that the difficulty within had spiked, although very few knew it was because Reya was not there, or that her cause was launching an offensive through their defensive. Although scaled for groups of twelve and they were nine, the remainder were filled with pets and companions so powerful they required their own slots.

One such member was a dire-wolf mutation named Banir by his owner. This pet was a limited prize for winners in the Hub’s Olympic marksman competition, and had become obsolete due to meta changes, but only without heavy investment. Taria Gladesmith made her proxy her primary focus, and while accustomed to using arrows, brought her plasma bow from the Sky Zone with her into the Spire. Her spike damage was off the charts, but her ability to rain arrows across the field did well to chip at larger hordes as a whole. While she toggled from focused fire to crowd control, Banir circled his master to fend off attackers, but also rushed into the fray when there were none to keep it that way.

Irialle Deathsbane may just be the best healer throughout the entire Hub. His role, despite the zone he was in, never changed. The best doctor the Nation ever knew mained as a cleric inside the Realm and commanded a host of medical nano-bots when he was walking the Sky Zone. In the Spire, he wielded everything he had as an absolute icon of preserving life. As the tallest of the group and of the giant race, his long reach augmented his area of effect, meaning he could bathe any battlefield in everything from healing rains to ailment disbursal spells. He was jovial and laughed a lot; a true lover of the Hub, who used his role to have the best view of the amazing feats he helped make possible.

Specializing in all things mercantile, Goldie Haggleshore was actually in the Hub’s top one hundred richest active users. She was a collector, a trader and spent very much of her time looting or salvaging. Her list of contacts was vast as well as prestigious, so to learn Phage was on it came as no surprise to Dymir. Her avatar was short, meek looking; coupled with very high charisma and luck stats meant she was almost never targeted with so many more obvious threats present. This allowed her to cast debilitating spells on the mobs without notice, while infusing the party with an array of items concocted to buff them in every way. With her was her trusty automaton, a quadrupedal, steampunk pet named ‘Rusty’, who doubled her inventory space and planted bombs where they mattered most. Goldie was only in it for the loot.

Recruiting Zesty Morgan took two slots in any party she joined – one for herself, and one for her battlesuit. Depending on the situation, she would break out of the suit to launch tandem attacks that laid waste to thicker mobs begging for a thrashing. Wielding her hammer Galaxias as one or two made no difference in the strength of impact. Morgan’s hybrid properties made her defenses outside her amour higher than most players with the thickest gear on the market. She engaged heavy units first, since she thrived on beating them at their own game. One of her racial passive traits made her excitement infectious, meaning her cheers for others and herself gave the raid a strong momentum. Hands down, she was having the most fun out of them all and cared not one mote for the heavier implications of the run.

Soulblight Godrender fought more like a boss than a user. If it wasn’t bolted down, he used it as a weapon to crush, impale or hurl at enemies, and in most cases, it being bolted down meant nothing. He was such a force with a knack for crushing the inanimate into impossible angles, while living things were dealt with just the same. His collection of arrows weaved through the battlefield and targets alike. He was a jack of all trades, applying buffs while rendering hexes across the board. Defensively, Sol had none, and it never mattered. The wave of repulsion emanating from him let nothing near; the harder it was pushed, the harder he pushed back. Sol was almost always the primary target when during boss encounters, which was just how he liked it.

Another one who liked it was Shaeva Viperstrike, a strong duellist who was well-known as a world-class fencer both inside the Hub and outside of it. Emilia McKenna was a household name when the World Games played out every five years. For two showings in a row, she dominated the decade as a premier defendant of the sword-fighting championship. She boasted her time in the Hub coupled with rigorous real-life training as the keys to her success. On the field, she was a blur, engaging priority targets deep within enemy ranks, in and out, always with blood on her twin blades. She and Morgan were working well together, with one setting up killing blows for the other. Shaeva thrived in the chaos, and was tempted by Phage’s invitation to a challenge like no other. One could only wonder if they knew each other IRL.

The summoner was the hardest profession to master, be it in the Realm or Sky, where their powers were most complicated. One had to be strong, very strong of mind to focus on the macro-management it took to play the role effectively. Massi Legionrise was one of these people. A veteran of the tactical situations presented inside the Hub, he also played his more intimate role as a tactician. Inside the Spire, he had access to every creature he’d reaped through his adventures, so it was hard to know what would come through his portals when an engagement began. The field was littered with everything from wraiths to robots, and when one fell, should it be organic, the corpse was not yet done.

Dymir used said corpses to fuel his army whether there was a lack of viable bodies or not. When the mobs were vast, he became a man of numbers, crashing rank into rank as the rest of the team worked ever so less impeded. Filling fodder with explosive hexes made the battlefield an eruptive bloodbath when the timing for combos worked out. When they faced less monsters but with higher pedigree, he unleashed his captured bosses or whatever horrid compound flesh golem he commanded at the time. Dymir noted the calibre of fight in their opposition; this was personal and serious to the other side. Every monster with a shred of awareness granted by the NPC revolution pulled tactics never seen before to take them to the top. Bosses from other regions appeared at any given moment. It was the most thrilling run of his life. Quite often a loud crack from the back of the party made half of them flinch, on both sides. This was Phage taking on of her hybrid shots, usually a full metal jacket wrapped in searing fire magic and propelled by an advanced firing system backed by harvested alien tech. When things got thick, she cast catastrophic fire spells, raining meteors down on the hordes and conjuring fissures of magma to maximize choke points. Her gun was drawn when the masses were managed without her and a target rubbed her the wrong way. Explosive shots shredded through flesh and metal without discretion; Phage was satisfied, while at the same time actually having fun. Psychic bosses sent hateful messages condemning her user for his motives. She cackled mentally in their faces, knowing full well that Sol could hear all of it but would do nothing to stop her.

Continue to Part 7-3: Friendly Fire