Solo This Blog is Not a Metaphor

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

Comments​

The Great Return

So four years ago, I was part of this West Marches style campaign. A whole bunch of people playing in the same campaign, this huge world that the DM clearly spent way too much time on. It'd been going on for years, and the players had gone so far as establishing an in-game nation, meaning there was a contingent of people who just spent all their time playing politics.

Pretty fucking wild.

I joined in towards the climax of a plot that had been in the making for a while - some great evil corrupting the land, a quest to hunt down its heart and destroy it, etc. Pretty standard stuff, very JRPG. My character was still pretty weak, so I didn't really plan on participating, but they ended up pulling everyone in the server in, made it this huge event. It was pretty damn impressive and definitely sold me on the whole thing.

...and then suddenly, the whole thing shut down. Server was deleted along with all the logs. No one could get in contact with the owners, and my dumb ass never added anyone as a friend, so I basically lost all contact with everyone involved. That sort of thing happens, of course, but... of all the ways for something to go out, huh?

I sort of forgot about it over time. After the first year with no sign of it I assumed it was gone for good and moved on with my life. Did some other games and so forth. I hadn't played that long, so there wasn't much to miss, I guess.

But of course, I wouldn't be making a whole blog to talk about a dead campaign, huh? I could just go post on R* or something. You can probably guess what that means, right?

Yeah. The game came back.

I guess whoever ran the server still had my email saved, because I got an invite by email. Joined up immediately, and immediately ended up getting roped into some survival mission with a few other people to get out of a city that an airship full of robots landed on top of. Apparently there were some people still playing the game - just out of sight in a small group. And a lot had happened in those four years.

Anyway. I'm not sure if I'm gonna stick with it, to be honest. After disappearing like that the first time, I'm not sure if I should trust its gonna stick around. Besides, the people running it have some... worrying ways of running things. Like banning you if your character hits 0 enough times, because... I don't know. Some desire to be hardcore?

But, well. If I'm going to play it, I might as well vent about it, right?​

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PINNED COMMENT: Vargold
Keep it secret, keep it safe. Don't make me nuke this section.

Spoiler

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[I][SIZE=5]I just think gamers don't know what's going on[/SIZE][/I]
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[Rakka Deltorra]

BekaBunny
Oh hey there Ash! Stumbled across your blog trying to do some research. I joined that campaign you mentioned recently myself, I can't imagine jumping into something so scary like fighting robots right away! I was wondering if by any chance you ever met a player with the username 'Sheepyteeth'? Or possibly anyone playing as a sheep or ram beastfolk... wait, when did beastfolk become a playable race - nevermind that detail then. I know for sure they'd be playing a male character, but that doesn't really narrow it down any. I'm trying to get in touch with an old friend of mine, and I'd appreciate any leads if you have any, no matter how small! Hope your time with the game goes well, take care of yourself out there

 

[Ash Vargold]

Vargold
Guess they added it for the reopening, but it makes sense. Having two races just for slightly different types of people with animal ears was always a little silly.

(Wish they had it before. I would've made a lizard instead. Now I've got this wolf boy and I'm too attached to change. If they even let us change...)

Can't say I've played with any sheep beastkin, but I've yet to join any other sessions. A little rough working around the 'can only talk to people in the region you're playing in' thing. They might still be in the beginner zones if they're new. If not... well, good luck on finding them. I'll keep an eye out if I do see 'em.

 

[Aziraphale]

BekaBunny
Oh wow, there used to be two different animal races?

(Shame about the lizard, but wolves are cute too! I'm going around as a rabbit, lol. Never got the chance to play FFXIV while it was still online, but I've always admired the Viera's design. Hoping it'll help my friend find me too)

Oh darn, I didn't realize that was a thing here. I doubt they're new, guess that's my motivation to 'git gud,' as they used to say. Thanks for the well-wishes and I appreciate you keeping an eye out for them! If you do happen to run into them, let them know BekaBunny says hi for me? And good luck to you as well!

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

GameFAQs is Dead - Long Live GameFAQs

There's a lot of new people running around lately - session's really picked up the recruitment lately. I've been lurking around to help out when I've got some free time, just so people aren't running around blindly. If you think I've helped you, hello! You've found me. Make sure you read the pinned comment before you post.

I'm making a list of tips on the slim chance someone sees this before they join in. It's unlikely, considering, but on the off chance you did stumble across this, or god forbid someone sent you a link, take into account the following.

Yes, dying's a big deal. No, you won't find any information about that. Yes, it was a very stupid decision to do that, all things considered.

There are no clear or easy-to-find guides online, and there probably never will be. Asking others in the server is your best bet to learning the particulars. Remains to be seen if we'll see a sudden revival of zine culture..

Before you go into anything serious, make sure you've looked at your settings. There's some very important ones that'll improve your experience by a lot.

Get to a settlement as soon as you can, especially if you went for weapons. You don't start with anything but the clothes on your back. Unless you picked the right spec, you won't be punching anything to death out there.

Group up. Solo players will get eaten alive, possibly literally, if they aren't careful. If you're anti-social then you take that risk.

Remember, you can always walk away. It's up to you to decide if the risk is worth it.​

 

[Lady N]

(Follows and subscribes.)

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
The screaming, however, is very literal

I put on my robe and amateur gamedev hat

Taking a break from talking about session stuff to go on about a Completely Unrelated Thing that's been bugging me.

In this case, that thing is the whole shitshow that was MetaVenture

Really, anything trying to be a 'metaverse' was probably doomed from the start, but even I was pretty interested in the game. That level of immersive VR was a childhood fascination of mine, fed by too much anime and other literature about the subject. I kept hoping that maybe they'd finally release a VRMMO that would be good enough to replace the old-school MMO I used to play, before it shut down on me... but I wanted to wait a bit, because no MMO has a clean launch, and at the time I really couldn't justify buying an expensive VR set.

...and then, well. The Death Loop incident happened, and that whole genre got smothered in the cradle.

The Death Loop incident's been analyzed to death, both by VRSA and a horde of influencers and so forth, so nothing I'm saying is really new, but this is my blog, and I'm gonna ramble about whatever I want.

In this case, I still can't get over the number of terrible design choices that fed into that thing happening. Things like "why don't we have a spawn-in-place revive system", and "we don't need an unstuck feature", and "what if we didn't have a feature to prevent someone from experiencing excruciating pain for hours on end?" If you're able to insert the experience of pain directly into someone's brainstem, you could at least make use of the ancient technology known as "a heart rate monitor".

The Death Loop incident happened because a bunch of corporate people were incredibly short-sighted and stupid. At least, I can only hope it was because of being stupid. If there was someone at Meta+ that actually intended to make a death game, just like in their Japanese Animes, then maybe it's for the best that VRSA shut that sort of thing now.

...still gonna be salty, though.​

Comments

[USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST]

Vargold
Read the pin.

If you're looking for links, I'm not the one to ask. If you're really desperate, try standing in front of a computer screen late in a dark room and say "Trinity" three times fast.

 

[Sepulchre af Umbral]

AnomalyHunter
Ohoho, referencing the old "Bloody Mary" legend I see. Have there been any such rumors around this game you've picked up? I'm collecting information on modern urban legends, and was hoping you'd be willing to expand upon what you meant by "being banned when you hit zero." Willing to pay for that zine if you're not comfortable discussing here. My DMs are open!

(follows and subscribes)

 

[Ash Vargold]

Vargold
Long story short, you get banned from life. Not ideal, unless you really don't like what life has to offer. Technically there's one more chance after that, but at that point you've gotten embroiled in some classic isekai bullshit, and after that you're done.

Four is death.

Can't say much about urban legends - the one 'legend' I heard ended up being real. Any others got lost to the wipe and four years of not thinking about the game. The zine thing was a joke. Mostly. How would I even distribute that anonymously

Good avatar, by the way.

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
Red Wizard Needs Food Badly

Whistle While You Work

I'm sure most of you in the campaign have heard about the expedition headed north - but in case you've missed some details, here's what I've figured out:

The Explorers League is a sort of vanguard force - pioneers on an endless quest to manifest destiny their way across the continent. As a result they have camps in some pretty far off places - and one of those camps went dark recently. Apparently they all turned on each other without a clear reason. Could be a disease, could be a curse, could be some kind of mind-controlling rock for all we know. Whatever the case, don't let your guard down.

And while we're on the subject of expeditions, don't neglect things like supplies to keep your needs satisfied. I'm sure the expedition team has its own supplies, but you should keep some emergency rations and the like ready in case something happens, or you get cut off, or one of a million other things go wrong.

That includes real-life needs too, by the way. Get some sleep. Eat something that's at least touched a vegetable. Take a shower. Do whatever job or study or basic family interactions you need to keep people from worrying about you. An expedition is a marathon, not a sprint.

If there's a fight on the other end, however... the last world boss took at least a day to get through. You can't log out in the middle of one of those, so if something like that is waiting, then you'll want to make sure you're rested and ready on both sides of the coin.

Be aware that if you commit to the expedition, you're committed - there's no fast travel to take you back to civilization. You're either riding with the caravan there and back, or you're hoofing it on your own. I'd suggest the former. If you're worried about getting into trouble, stick with the group. You don't have to be on the front line to be helpful.

You may want to set your character to the 'desynced' logout setting - that way they won't be vulnerable while you're offline. Don't worry about getting telefragged or left behind - if you log out on a cart, you'll log in on a cart. Means you're at least a little safer... and it means they don't have to worry about the logistics about a bunch of unconscious bodies lying around.

Stay safe, travelers. Maybe I'll see you on the road.

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
<catchy subtitle goes here>

<post subject goes here>

Okay. Breaching kayfabe for some real talk.

The boss battle is bad news. I've done one of these before. That was the first time I died, and I'm still dealing with the consequences.

It'll eat up your time. Even with limiters on you're going to deal with some fucked up shit, and sometimes a psychic attack is worse than a mechanical attack, because that stuff follows you to the other side.

Once you're in, you're committed. No turning back unless you die, and even then it's not a guarantee.

Make sure you've essentials in reach for when you're done. Let people know you'll be busy if you have to. Make sure you've got a way to draw attention to yourself if you're in too long. Maybe you'll get yourself in trouble, but the alternative is worse. There's a few sites out there that'll let you queue up an email that'll automatically send out if you don't check in at a certain point.

Three days without water, three weeks without food, but when you're inactive you have a little wiggle room. The game doesn't have to kill you to kill you.

Have a team. Have a plan. Make sure people know if you want to be revived if you go down, because you don't have a choice once you are down. One death is bad, but two deaths can be much worse. If it's a choice between a respawn or a lock-in, the former's always better.

You've got your chance to walk away. What happens on one side doesn't have to affect the other.

If you go in anyway, good luck and godspeed. You'll need it.

Comments

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
<catchy subtitle goes here>

<post subject goes here>

Fuck this game.

I'm going to sleep.

Comments

 

[Ash Vargold]

Aisling, thankfully, does not dream of the battle. In fact, she would think she didn't dream at all, if not for those dim moments just before she woke up. A moment of sleep paralysis, a shadow looming above her, a voice muttering too quietly to make out the words...

She wakes up sweating. It takes a moment to reorient herself in reality, and she spends a little too long investigating her room for intruders. It is, of course, empty.

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
Next time let's just call an exterminator

Down with the Sickness

Okay, now that I've had some sleep and time to process, it's time for the much awaited Session Summary!

Our story begins with a forward camp in the jungles north of civilization. Reports state that it's fallen, its inhabitants tearing each other apart in a hideous rage. Not a good sign, and so an expedition is assembled to investigate, and all players in the channel are invited.

It's your standard long journey. Time spent preparing, time spent traveling, which involved a fight with mushroom people. You know, classic fantasy adventure stuff.

After a while, we got to the camp, which was... well, a bloody nightmare. And we pretty quickly found out why they'd torn each other apart - there was some kind of plague, something called Red Fever, and we were all infected. Thus, the race was on - to cure the disease and figure out its source. The session split into four groups for that purpose, each with a different goal... and at the same time, we had to deal with the fever getting worse and messing with characters emotional states.

We succeeded... mostly. One of the groups, the Explorers, found the source of the plague. A demonic corpse, and a giant insect hive infected by the same fever. Of the people who went out, only a few came back with the information - the rest were trapped, which meant we were on a schedule.

What followed was one hell of a boss fight - an enormous swarm of insects, the insect mother chowing down on the demon, people getting rescued. It was an insane encounter, and it only got worse when the boss proceeded to shoot a fucking laser at everyone, cutting a swath in the ground and taking out more than a few players in the process.

Didn't stop us, though. We wailed on that thing until we thought it was dead... only for it to try and pull one hell of a swansong. Started sprouting human arms and teeth and all those things that really don't belong on a bug.

And then it exploded.

So, in the end, we won - but shit, what a rough fight. Went on into the early morning, and god forbid your timezone make that difficult. The DMs are US east coast, so I had a three hour advantage, but it was still emotionally exhausting.

...hell of a way to start a story arc, though.

Comments

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
Will the me of today exist tomorrow?

This post is not about videogames

Technically, this isn't actually just a live play log blog. I've mainly talked about the game because it's been the main hobby consuming my free time, but sometimes I'm gonna talk about other things.

TL;DR: Thinking is weird and we really don't know shit about it. Now to the post.

I've been thinking about philosophy. No, I'm not a philosopher. I just read a lot. So here's a story:

A man takes a walk in the swamp during a thunderstorm. As he's walking, a bolt of lighting strikes a nearby tree. He's killed instantly - but at the same time, entirely by coincidence, the tree is transfigured into an identical copy of him at that exact moment, down to the molecule. This "swampman" returns to the place it remembers as "home", greets his "friends", thinks about his "past" - but the swampman didn't actually experience these things.

And so the question is raised: does the swampman think at all? Can it "know" anything, seeing as it's never met anyone or experienced anything before the moment it was created? There's no context for the information it has. No continuity of its continued existence. It's a philosophical zombie, driven only by the base impulses, but lacking an actual consciousness.

At least, that's one interpretation of it.

The philosophy of consciousness is fucking weird, and a lot of it ties into whether you think there is something unique about being a person - whether you think we are more than our meat.

Essentially, it's whether you believe that there's such a thing as a soul.

It comes up sometimes in AI studies - whether you could have a machine with a "consciousness", or if it's just following incredibly complex code to make it look like it does. So it goes with our swampman - if you stabbed it, would it actually be feeling pain? Or would it simply be reacting in a way appropriate to being stabbed?

...of course, keep in mind that people used to think that animals didn't really feel pain. Or babies. That they lacked the ability to feel in the way adult humans do, and that anything that looked like pain was just them responding physically to negative stimuli without any conscious comprehension. Most people don't believe that anymore.

Thank you for coming to my TED yell.

Comments

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
Pining for the fjords

Just checking in

First of all, no I'm not dead. Not arrested, either. Thank you for being concerned in the comments, even if I had to delete like half of them. Read the pinned post, seriously.

Second, the reason I haven't updated is because of a few changes going on in my life.

I've also been working on beefing up the security for this site, since it's been drawing a little more attention than I realized. Turns out I had some attack surfaces I neglected to cover, and the last thing I need is someone hacking this site. I think it should be good now, but if you happen to be a whitehat prodding this thing I'm sure you could leave a spooky note in the drafts or something.

Not many updates from the game - after that last setpiece it's been quiet. Couple of bounties and other jobs to do in the aftermath of that ruined camp, but nothing flashy. Honestly for the best, really.

Anyway, that's it from me. Take care out there.

Comments

 

[Ash Vargold]

There's still a sense of unreality haunting the back of Aisling's mind as she sits in front of her computer. Everything feels too large, or she feels too small. Lesser, somehow. There's a ghost haunting her muscle memory, brought on by her longest session of Terrasphere in years.

In time, it should fade. That's her hope, at least.

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

Cyborgs and Conspiracies

There are a few major nations in-game, but only one has the distinction of being made by player actions. It's capital was pretty impressive back then, since of course the players put their all into making it as anachronistic as possible.

And then they dropped a spaceship on it during the 4 year break, turning it into a robot-infested wasteland.

Yeah. Bit of a genre shift, there.

Anyway. Since then, keeping said robotic menace from rampaging across the countryside has been a primary focus of said player nation - and it's been a rough. To the east of the former capitol lies Camp Hope IV - and you can probably guess what happened to the first three.

A group of Travelers, myself included, ended up joining what was supposed to be a mission to locate the king of the player nation by pursuing a distress beacon... or two, in this case. There were not, by the way, supposed to be two beacons, and one of the members of the team I was on wanted to find out why.

I'm not entirely sure what that process entailed - we were scattered across the camp doing our own preparations when we all got summoned for some kind of remote viewing thing on the beacon we were supposed to hunt down. It was, unfortunately, not the king. What we saw was some kind of Magia woman with what was apparently some kind of magitech egg.

Then she noticed us peeping on her, called us "saviors", and proceeded to snipe us all through the astral plane.

Obviously, we did not go hunt down the creepy remote slashing woman. We'd gotten the information we needed anyway, but... well, of course, things got more complicated. Conspiracy-level complicated, which, by the way, our team was very much not equipped for. I won't go into the details because I'm not exactly clear on them myself, but long story short, it ended with the captain of the camp being accused of conspiring with some nobles to sabotage the camp, and an ensuing battle between the camp guard and the bluecoats with a robot raid scheduled for the morning.

(By the way - there are a surprising number of nobles just... hanging out in that camp. What the hell are they doing there? Not exactly a great vacation spot...)

Fortunately, we were able to pull some strings and get the two sides to reach some kind of accord before the actual attack, which meant they had some time to prepare.

Cue the aptly named "DEAD.naught". Also known as "bootleg Metal Gear that shits fire and lasers everywhere".

Along with some other machines, it was... more or less a pretty standard battle. Big guy crawling towards camp, players making an effort to set up traps to keep it from rushing our way. We were actually doing pretty alright for a while, but then

Aisling has to stop for a moment. There's still something that twists in her gut when she thinks of that moment, watching the machine consume a player alive. How does she even parse that into this thinly veiled roleplay metaphor? The idea feels disrespectful, but so long as the algorithm looms...

the DEAD.naught picked up an upgrade, courtesy of a fallen player.

That's when things got complicated, and people started dropping. It was a pretty basic AI before, but running on human software was another story. Fortunately, it didn't last much longer after that - it was already on its last legs. We took it down...

...and, unsurprisingly, it exploded. I feel like bosses in this game like to explode.

To those players who took their first death during this event - you've got a long road ahead of you.

And to the players who took their third, good luck.

Comments

Vargold
G.N.U. Quinn

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

Comments​

Round 2, Fight!

Welcome to the new blog, same as the old blog, mostly. You may be wondering what happened, and the answer to that is "someone spammed the comments until it triggered the algorithm". Surprise surprise, the whole thing got deleted.

That might be my fault for having a comments section in the first place. Word spread a lot faster than I expected. Either way, I've got it back up, and even managed to save the old posts.

In an effort to avoid repeating past mistakes, I've foregone the comments section. A tragic loss, especially since some of you did have some very legitimate questions. I'm throwing as many as I can into a QA page, but until I can find a way to facilitate conversation without risking a nuke, we'll just have to do without.

Until then, just remember the most basic rule - don't go it alone. Whatever happens, a few trustworthy friends can make all the difference.

Stay safe out there and in there.

Edit: Finagled a substitute in the form of comments on a secondary page. More secure than what I had before. Link up in the header. Go wild-ish.

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

Comments​

Beep boop.

And so the Attack of the Robots continues. We've learned a few interesting things about them recently:

• There are two "factions" of Magia - the ones that are aggressive, and the ones that want to be our allies.
• The enemy faction is led by someone named... "Sho-frit"? "Jo-frit?" I don't actually know how it's supposed to be spelled.
• The enemy faction of Magia is acting the way it is because of Dissonance.

Now, for all you New Generation players, you may not have heard of Dissonance. Or you have, but in a vague way from shellshocked veterans. Which means it's time for an...

Dissonance, at its core, is a corrupting force that typically manifests as things with red eyes, purple flesh, and far too many tentacles. The first time we really faced it was an entity named Titanius, an eldritch horror so huge that we had to fight the thing in its stomach, while being slowly digested, and by the way there were tentacles and eyeballs in there too.

The place you're most likely to encounter them is far to the west, in High March. After all, that's about as close as you can get to the source of it all without jumping into a giant crater. Please do not jump into the giant crater, I don't know what fuckery is still down there and you probably don't want to either.

Now, you probably know there's all kinds of random ailments that can mess with your character, but Dissonance is different, and very serious, because it can do something nothing else can do.

Dissonance will fuck with your interface.

That means no assist functions, no limiters, no remote communication, and no logging out.


Everything's pointing towards us dealing with Dissonance here. I can't tell you not to join in whatever counter-attack is being planned right now, but I can at least put out the warning. If you don't know how to do things without assistance, or if you aren't ready for some serious pain, sit this one out.

I repeat: Dissonance will fuck with your interface. And if you aren't prepared for that, then you'll be walking to your death.

Comments​

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

Comments​

<untitled>

beastfolk can go into berserker rages
elves can manipulate emotions and dreams
faerin are cursed with monstrous hunger
humans don't need an excuse to be fuckers
don't let magia become faerin 2.0 just because they were unfortunate enough to be plot relevant

there's going to be a lot of heartbroken families tomorrow, and you-know-who's gonna notice in a big way. if this site goes dark, you know why.

full writeup of the vintergard shitshow later, assuming we're still live.

Comments​

 

[Ash Vargold]

This Blog is Not a Metaphor
I just think gamers don't know what's going on

Comments​

The Great Vintergardian Shitshow

Strap in folks. This is going to be a long one.

Our story starts with the sky going red and the entirety of Astorea getting UI-locked.

Not in the "traditional" sense that comes with dying too much, of course. Remember when I mentioned how Dissonance can fuck with your interface? Well, this was entirely unlike how Dissonance normally works. Windows and buttons flickering and jumping around if you could open it at all.

The explosions began shortly after, when over half the Magia population simultaneously went berserk. We figured out pretty quickly that this was due to outside influence from Szofrit (finally got a spelling), the corrupted 'leader' of the Vintergardian Magia. They'd been hacked, and it was the few lucky ones that were able to resist or get snapped out of it.

This, of course, forced the timeline for reclaiming Vintergard to 'right fucking now'. If you were a player, you were either running towards or away from the city. (Guess where I went.) What ensued was a pretty typical siege type scenario - bunch of player characters vs. a seemingly endless robot horde. We thought we had an idea of what we were marching into.

Hah.

We've seen 'simulations' run by the Magia before, but this was something else. Everyone was separated from each other, plunged into a black void to have a toe-to-toe with Szofrit for a bit.

It's here that Aisling stops. Letting her mind brush against that time in the void and the feeling of having everything stripped away makes her shudder. How does she put it into words? Is it even worth trying?

She wanders the house. Gets a drink. Gets into a mocking argument with her housemate. And eventually she returns, looks at the blinking cursor, and continues.

When you make your character (at least now), you get to choose things like your Masteries and racial traits. When you die, you come back with a DA. When you play, you understand how things work in a way that feels natural.

In that void, there was none of that. It was just you piloting whatever avatar you made.

The longer we fought, the more Szofrit's simulation degraded. Of course, being a simulation made it no less deadly, and there were a lot of deaths. We did what we could to survive and pick each other up, but the battlefield kept shifting, and Szofrit wasn't alone - she had backup making sure that we were always on the edge of defeat.

In the end, it feels like it was sheer luck that turned the tide. As the simulation broke down, we discovered a safe spot - one of two magitech eggs created by the Magia, both of which were safe from Szofrit and her minions. We were able to rally around it and recover. We all got ready to turn the tide.

But, well.. the moment Szofrit stopped feeling like a threat, we all got busy threatening each other.

From the moment this fight started, two warring sentiments coalesced. A lot of people went in intending to kill Szofrit, of course. She was the one responsible for all of this, and she was corrupted by Dissonance. By any metric, it was the best option we had to end everything.

But another sentiment began to spread. A growing number of people wanted to capture Szofrit with the intent of studying her. Figuring out where she'd come from, and what had caused her to fall. It was... a slim chance, but a growing number of players began to rally behind it.

Of course, whatever we wanted to do couldn't happen until we downed Szofrit to begin with. And we did... kind of. The moment we downed her, everything just... stopped. Like someone hit pause on the game.

Then things began to rewind. Four minutes reversed like they'd never happened. Injuries, movement, and Szofrit's previous state of Too Many Tentacles.

There was also the giant clock eyeball thing.

I didn't get a good look at it, but I saw and heard enough to know it was bad news.

"Four minutes have been pilfered from the game. The world will have its recompense."

No way I can forget what it said. And then everything started up again, and everyone proceeded to tear each other apart for their preferred ending. It was a wonder we succeeded at anything at that point, but in the end the movement to capture her won out. The simulation was gone, Szofrit was contained, and we were finally able to log out.

But not before we got one last little message, straight from the UI. A straight up Congratulations. A message about us meeting a "Prerequisite II". And a message about a "System Update".

...I don't know what'll happen after this. But I hope you people still playing reconsider your choice. We don't understand this game, or what it's capable of. It doesn't have to kill you to ruin your life.

Take care. Don't die.

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