Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

“My consoles not working.”

“What do you mean it’s not working?”

Priscilica held up her hands as if she didn’t know what was going on, doing the motions and calling out for the console to get nothing. It made Aaginim’s group stop for a second, considering that the glitch was making things even more problematic.

“Can you still access your spells?”

The pink haired mage nodded as she called up a fireball, levitating it in her hand before closing it to extinguish the flame. “Somatic and Vocal components work, I just can’t see the menu. It’s like I’m running half-blind. I don’t like this… but we can’t go back. Not after the wall shifted. Only way out is at the end.”

Enos sighed, frustrated, “So do you want to sit here and wait for this glitch to iron out?”

“No, just let me take a minute to pull out my spellbook. I want to make sure I have right incantations memorized. Twintails, do you wanna do the same?”

“Yes. That’s probably… smart.”

Siegfried sighed, leaning against the wall. “I’m just glad we noticed now, before—”

“Quiet. We’ve got movement ahead. Goblins. Be ready.”
-
-

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Rael had appreciated Benkei’s acknowledgement of her skill, but outside of a smirk the Japanese native hadn’t reacted. There appeared to many other things on her mind.

As she led the group down the right corridor they had come to a large door with large aetherian letters inscribed into the stone above it. “Death Waits.” She had uttered, reading the words over as she began the group’s descent into the first proper room of the dungeon. When they got half-way into the room a loud ‘snap’ jolted their attention backwards as the entryway they had crossed was covered by a thick stone wall with a painted skull at its center. Rael hadn’t jumped from the sound, but there was a certain eeriness to this dungeon that even The Astral Tower didn’t inspire. Maybe it was due to the changes they had seen with the smell of goblins, the taste of potions, and the heat of the sun… but something shook Rael to the center of her bones.

She carried on, of course, refusing to show a weak face. “Only one way out now.”

As she turned back a loud audience of giggling caught her attention from the shadows. Her eyes moved to the vents on the top of the walls that surrounded them on all sides but front and back.


The room was long, almost a corridor in itself, but it was wide.

“Humans go night night!” Shouted the creatures from the shadows and Rael had readied her spear for them to crawl out of their holes… except they never did such a thing. Where a normal mob in Deepfire Crypt would rush them head-on it was here that a loud ‘click’ was heard from the obscure darkness of wherever the goblins were hiding and in a few moments she understood why—her eyes jotted up to the ceiling.

“Oh crap.”

The entire ceiling was protruding with sharp, stone spikes. They were about the size of a human body each and as she said her words it began moving, indicating that the goblins had expected to crush them to death instead of stabbing them to death. Rael’s eyes immediately jotted down the room, there was a door, looking like it was wired to six different levers in the room adjacent to the door. What did the levers do? Which one opened the door? Shit. There was no sign or clues of what did what—it was too dark, she would need to get closer.

She moved to go for the door and a floor tile opened to bring out a spike of its own at blinding speeds. Shit! Sensitive floor tiles on a time-based death trap from above with multiple levers that could make anything worse? She twirled her staff, jumping back.

She hated these kind of dungeons.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Seele proceeded cautiously, keeping within the flickering pool of light cast by Kazuki’s torch. It was a silly thing, really, for someone like her to be even mildly afraid of the dark—someone with a literal affinity for it, who was also, allegedly, an adult. But she couldn’t help it, it’d been that way since she was a little girl, and the only thing that had changed was that now she was better at pretending it didn’t faze her as much.

Suddenly, something snapped behind the group and filled the dark room with a horrid, echoey grinding. Someone shrieked and jolted like a startled cat.

It was Seele.

She quickly clapped a hand over her own mouth, and her brief flash of surprise devolved into embarrassed giggling. Oh gosh, she’d actually just done that. What a way to inspire confidence in the others.

Before she could apologize however, there came the familiar croaking of goblin voices from…the walls? From somewhere that wasn’t right here, charging at them, which was abnormally strange for the earlier mobs.

Quickly, though, she understood why. As the room’s sinister designs revealed themselves in a flurry, Seele’s mind raced for answers. She made to run through her spells but—no console? Was this part of the apparent glitch? Shoot. But she knew her spells at least, she’d been doing this long enough, and the first thing that came to her was simple, and disconcerting.

She had no answer for this.

But that was fine. She didn’t have the answer to most of Pariah’s problems, that wasn’t how she played the game. She didn’t make the plays, she helped other people make the plays. If there was a way out of this, then the best thing she could do was make it easier for her team to find it.

Seele straightened up and took stock of her allies. “I think I can handle the ceiling,” she said, and with a flair of her sleeves she brought her wrists up parallel to each other. Chains coalesced from the dark, sloughing off shadows for ghostly violet light, and in the work of an umbral moment, her hands were bound.

The effects were immediate, she felt weaker, even more so than she usually did when the shackles were summoned. This was strange. This was worrying.

This was not the time for doubt.

One by one she angled her shackled hands to her allies and snapped her claw-ringed fingers. The tinny din of the metal was different this time, its echo a warble of arcane devilry. Light shimmered around each of them in turn, and though it took a few moments, soon enough most of them had been surrounded by a faint shell of violet, which just as quickly faded out of sight, only to flicker back into being if struck. The shields were not very strong, but they also weren’t very expensive. The drain Seele felt from each cast, she knew, was more from the effect of the shackles than the cost of the shields.

Cracks formed in the chains between her wrists, leaking iridescent vapors to the floor. She threw buffs to a few them, negligible and quickly vanishing thanks to the shackles, but they did their jobs. After several moments of focused casting—a luxury she didn’t often get—the chains suddenly shattered into mist.
…Mis…sy…
Now she did not feel weak.

Another round of metal snaps brought new shields to a few of them—not many, she couldn’t afford to do too much lest she run herself empty or break the phase. Darker, almost void-like, only to be sucked away back to Seele an instant later as she brought one hand up towards the ceiling.
…please…
A dome appeared around the few of them who had stayed towards the back, and with some effort its shape changed, becoming more taller, narrower. It connected with the descending ceiling, and she felt an uncanny pressure within herself as the spikes met the shimmering, abyssal light. Truthfully, she didn’t know if it would hold for long, or if it would even hold at all, but the best she could do right now was try.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

The way behind them shut with a thunderous crack, causing Graves to jump. He glanced over his shoulder quickly. 'Hope nobody caught that.' There were more nerve-inducing noises coming from above them: the hideous laughter of shadowed things, ready to pounce. If only. They activated some kind of trap in the ceiling, causing spikes to jut out and- worse still- for the whole thing to start descending toward them. There was a way forward in the form of a door on the other side of the room, yet it seemed to be locked behind some lever-based puzzle. Great. The worst parts of Pariah were always the things that could kill you but you couldn't kill them back.

To make matters worse the floor seemed to be spiked up, too. Rael managed to avoid getting shish kabob'd, if only just. For all his many complaints about her, Graves couldn't doubt her speed or flexibility; nobody else in the party could replicate that maneuver. So instead he stepped up next to her and gave her a cheeky wink, "Don't you worry your pretty lil' head off. I got this." And he took a step forward onto the tile left of the one she'd checked. No trap was triggered so he put his full weight onto it, looking back at everyone else. Seele look like she was prepping to do something about the upper half. Alex had an arrow notched and ready to go at...something. But most of them were clueless. "Alright, everybody, keep in a line behind me and don't do anything stupid and we're gonna make it across just fine."

Just as he was starting to go Alja tapped him on the back, muttered something, and he felt an ice cold coat of armor wrap itself around him. He just shot her a thumbs up as thanks for the assist and pressed on to the tile in front of him-

A spike came flying out! He stumbled back, trying to avoid the point, only for it to catch the bottom of his boot. The tip pierced the hardened leather like a needle pierced cloth, and it kissed flesh not a moment later. Graves fell back into the arms of whoever was standing behind him, and a howl left his throat.

"GAAARGH! FUCK!"

It was a terrible, agonized bellow from the deepest part of his gullet. Pain shot through his foot and up his leg like he'd never felt before. Shock rocked his system. He'd been playing Pariah Online since its Japanese release, and in that time he'd suffered all manner of injury: impalement, limb loss, full-body burns. Yet none of that could compare to being nicked by one of these spikes. Confusion, panic and rage at his own stupidity flushed his mind as he stumbled on one foot, ushered to the back of the party. "What the fuck- what the fuck was that? What the fuck?!"

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

This wasn’t good.

Pain was apparently added to the content. Rael frowned, as she thought about the implications. She had heard of simulation but this was taking it a little bit too far. It was a glitch. It was a problem. She called out for her console to try to send a ticket to a GM… and then it didn’t open.

Before she could say anything to her group a loud thud hit the floor. And then a gear. And then another gear. And then another gear. The floor was covered in ice, although only for a split second. The red-haired girl heard the ice breaking under the pressure of the mechanicisms it was freezing in Thorinn’s humid, almost sub-tropical summer heat. They were underground but it was still humid. The spikes were steel or iron, some kind of metal. The ice wouldn’t hold. She heard someone call out for her as she channeled all of her magical energy into her feet.

Enhancement Magic: Level 4. Spring Step.

Ambient energy surrounded her feet as she threw herself in the air—looking up, she knew there was the ceiling being held by the support. She wouldn’t burst into it. Instead she aimed for the leftmost wall. She locked her feet upon contact, pushing ambient energy into her feet to stay on it before carefully hoping off. There were no holes on the floor beneath her. She should be safe. When she hit the floor she would sigh a breath of relief as she twirled her spear, looking back at the group in dismay.

She didn’t say a word.

"B-Benkei, guys, be careful, there's...something's different." She heard Kazuki say, and she could not agree more.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Benkei hated being right. Everything seemed off about this dungeon, and with the traps, with Graves wounded, with their being blood and pain Benkei began to panic. What was happening? There were safeguards on their gear to keep issues like this from occurring, right? The government wouldn’t allow gaming technology that could actually harm a player, right? So what was this? An elaborate hack? A glitch gone horribly wrong?

"B-Benkei, guys, be careful, there's...something's different."

He had to think and think quickly. Between Graves, Rael and Alja, he’d gotten an idea of how the spikes worked. The question was, what did they need to do about the lever? He bright the torch ring up, inspecting the safe area around them. Nothing. His heart was pounding. What would happen if someone suffered lethal damage if they actually felt pain? Would it kill them?

He looked up at the spiked ceiling. If they didn’t solve this problem, he didn’t want to even imagine how the feeling of being both impaled and crushed would feel.He called to Rael. “Rael! Do you see anything useful about how to solve this trap? Words or a mural of some kind? Even some kind of symbols would help!”

“Something’s on the door! Could be a clue, but it’s covered in moss!”

“Stay there! I’ll check it out!” He turned to the others. “Keep your eyes open, protect Graves and Seele.” His eyes darted, a mixture of fear and hesitation. “I’m entrusted to lead you all out alive, and I promise I will do that.”

It was a stupid, near suicidal idea he had in mind. Each pressure plate would cause a mechanical reaction. And one of those reactions was a spear erupting up and skewering the unlucky person standing under it. He reached into his satchel, and produced a tincture. An ironskin potion; a bitter smelling draught that hardened the skin, making it difficult to be cut or pierced. He quickly downed the potion, nearly gagging on the horrid taste. The feeling of his skin tightening, hardening, like an awful rash was miserable too. This wasn’t game mechanics, this was feeling his entire body change in a rapid way.

There was no way this was a patch. Or a joke. Even a hack couldn’t be this elaborate, could it?

He hefted up his greatsword, and slammed it into a pressure plate directly in front of him. The gears began to turn. The tile in front of it moved a spike up, while the previous one fell. He stepped forward and pressed the tile next to him, and remarked when the same effect happened. “I think I understand how this mechanism works,” he remarked, and stepped diagonally to a tile. The tile in front of it had a spike shoot up as expected. Benkei began moving in a diagonal pattern, with the spikes raising and following in his motion. In what only took a few seconds, but felt like hours to him, he reached the door, and quickly began to scrape away the dust and grime to read what words were etched into the stone and metal.

He squinted his eyes, and read the riddle aloud to the party, his voice cracking with each nerve wracking sound of the stone ceiling:

“Charisma and Dexterity, between two levers sit,
Your Strength is always first, a clue I dare not to omit.
Your Int is next to Con, which is itself good friends with Dex,
But Strength and Charisma are foes for whom there's no respect.
Your job's to find the Wisdom that's required to pass this door,
Dexterity calls it its friend, pull now or witness gore!”

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

The stench of blood would not disappear. They could trek away from the corpses, advance towards the engulfing darkness, and even fight against a ceiling that got closer to gnashing their bones with every passing second, but they could not get rid of the metallic, rotten scent. When Graves had made the almost fatal mistake of activating a pressure plate, it had returned in a bloom of red that refused to be ignored. The heat, the stench, none of it compared to the pain. Raw and unfiltered, his bellow tore through the room. They would have to approach every tile around them with caution, lest a worse punishment would trigger.

"Graves..." muttered Alex. This wasn't a fit of anger from a misplay or some frustration from a puzzle. It was a reaction to pain. There were no words that he could say, no easy fix. They would just have to figure out a way to solve the puzzle before anyone was next.

""Pull now? So we're gonna need someone to pull a lever then," said Alex, in reference to the riddle. A lever. Singular.

The pressure plates. The others in his party had already begun trying out ideas, working around the restrictions posited by being mostly melee attackers. Benkei had reached the door even, reading a cryptic inscription out loud. Alex was an archer on the other hand, so his first line of thought was to think of a way to use that to his advantage.

But a different idea came to him. He had a strong affinity to wind, one that allowed him to use it in combat. Only in small doses, just enough to help him jump an extra few feet or knock an opponent off balance, but if he were to push much, much further...

After a moment of both mentally readying himself and bringing his body close to the ground, he jumped towards the tiles in a dive tackle, his body parallel to the ground. His body was propelled by wind and began to glide across the area in an awkward motion, propelled almost entirely by the minor skill. He'd done this before, although the power it required tended to stifle his abilities. This time, however, there was something different. He could feel himself enervated with every passing second he glided. The closer he got to the other side, the more it intensified, to the point where he briefly considered what would happen if he were to crash across the tiles.

After what felt like an uncomfortably long moment of silence, he found solid ground. It could have been more gracefully executed, but he did it. The moment he tried to stand upright was when things got strange. Whatever this tech demo was attempting to showcase had apparently included exhaustion, and the consequences of pushing a minor ability to its absolute limit had hit him like a freight train. One of his hands groped the wall for balance, the other briefly hovered over a lever... with an inscription on its base. A bow. He wanted to pull it, just to see what would happen. It sure looked interesting. The hand ended up settling on his thigh, however.

"I can..." he panted, "I... did it! What... lever are we supposed to pull?"

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

A searing pain turned into a dull thrum as Kazuki worked his magic. Graves sat with his back against the wall, his face torn up with emotion. Pain in and out of game was a familiar friend to him, but this had completely and utterly caught him off guard. It was like he'd stepped on a real, not-made-of-code bunch of nails; it'd happened a couple of times when he was helping his 'pa build their garage. That pain a dozen times over was still less than this.

Shame. He was ashamed to be the first one to bitch out after taking a hit. It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course-- not that it made him feel any better about it. He was supposed to be leading the charge. Kicking ass, taking names. That was what was expected of him. Graves had a reputation that didn't include cowering next to his healer.

"Thanks." Still, he couldn't deny that Kazuki was helpful. He'd gone to work quickly on a wound he probably hadn't seen before this and fixed it quick. Threw in a bandage to boot, too. He was quick, efficient, didn't bother with chatter- it was something Graves appreciated. The fear in the man's voice when he called out to Benkei was...forgivable, given the strange circumstances. Something was very wrong here. "Seriously, man," he said as he stood up and gave Kazuki a look. "I 'ppreciate it."

The rest of the team, meanwhile, had gotten to working on getting them the hell out of there. Seele was struggling to keep the ceiling from falling on them, Rael and Benkei were solving the puzzle's riddle, and Alex had pulled some stunt to launch himself across the full length of the room to get to the actual levers themselves. The archer looked ecstatic at his success. "Just pull the god damn lever then! Seal's workin' her ass off and those spikes comin' down are gonna hurt a hell of a lot worse than these ones."

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Rael had kept her eyes on Benkei as he traversed the death trap, almost in an ingenious way, moving diagonally across the floor-plates, tricking the mechanisms. Stepping on a tile activated the tile in front of it. It was a simple trap as she thought about it. Most people would be scared of the ceiling coming in on them and would have rushed over to the console of levers and likely skewered themselves in a panic. A trap replying on a group’s sense of calm. She was just surprised Benkei, or anyone for that matter, figured it out before Seele broke from holding the ceiling at bay.

Graves had reacted to spikes with pain… so what would it be like if they all were crushed? Rael thought back to another dungeon where her party couldn’t escape a room in similar circumstance. Wayfarer’s were simulated with a armor of sorts where pain receptors didn’t factor in. They didn’t get hurt or sick or winded. But the tables had changed. She looked at the ceiling for a second and grimaced at the pain before looking back to Seele. How was she holding up in her casting? Rael herself had use one advanced spell-like ability and she had felt winded, so she couldn’t imagine what a sustained spell felt like.

She turned back to Benkei as he reached the door and shouted out a riddle. Looking down at the floor to avoid spikes, Rael followed him to the door. The illumination of his ring and her spear revealing the upper-half of the room in clear view.

Suddenly there was a gust of wind and the kid—the archer—was at the levers, avoiding the spikes. Impulsive. Stupid. What if he had underclocked himself and landed on the wrong spot?

"I... did it! What... lever are we supposed to pull?"

Rael looked back to the rhyme and repeated the verse that stuck out to her, “Your job’s to find the wisdom that’s required to pass this door.”

She looked to the levers. Which one was supposed to represent wisdom?

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Kalie had been slightly quieter than usual, and it's mostly because all the stuff that was happening was too fast. Or, in this case, too dangerous one wrong move meant death, which definitely didn’t help the situation, not at all. It’s like this game has gotten way too dangerous even quicker than usual as if it wasn’t a game. ’ What the hell is going on? Blood and pain that makes me uncomfortable.’ Kalie thought to herself, quietly.

It was one thing, but the most grateful thing was that the floor traps were disabled, but the ceiling was still coming down. She would rather live than be speared by those spikes coming down on the ceiling. As such, she decided to run through to the door as quickly as her agility could take her. ” Holy Fucking Christ… What the fuck is going on?” Kalie questioned, a bit terrified. All these things felt too much for her as if the world turned upside down for a second, with a glitch. She was also trying to also catch her breath from running from one side of the trap to the door.

Kalie couldn’t help but freak out a little bit because all the stuff that happened in that room was terrible. What next in this dungeon? This wasn’t a normal dungeon, that’s for sure. ’ I need to calm down, but this is utterly freaky… I never had panic attacks or freak-outs in Pariah Online before...’ Kalie thought to herself, with a definitely scared look on her face. She tried to breathe in and out to calm down after getting past the door. She had never once felt like she was actually in danger before, which is why she was suspicious. Thankfully, she let the others figure out the puzzle because she was too shocked by what happened to Graves. It did make her worry about Graves a little bit, but thankfully the healer did his due diligence in healing him.

It would take a bit of time for her to recover from that horrifying experience fully, but there’s probably more like that. Kalie shook her head slightly and sighed. ” Umm, I’m terribly sorry for my outburst. But This is helluva scary right now… Did we enter some horrific horror game or something?” Kalie said. She was definitely not in character because this was an utterly terrifying experience. It didn’t take much to see, but she was shaking a bit terrified, which was a definite different look on her. As if something definitely rattled her cage much more than normal.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

She was so proud of them.

She was also, frankly, terrified, but even in the midst of impending, unprecedented danger, Seele couldn’t help but beam as the group managed to figure out the room’s tricks. She wanted to shout out some kind of encouragement, or congratulations, but when she opened her mouth all she managed was a choked gasp.

Right, the shield. The effects of her Broken Chains spell had worn off long ago, and now the barrier above her existed only by the loophole of the fact that she was still channeling it. The spikes had gradually bored through the cumulative power of the shields she’d applied, and she’d had to start funneling her own health into it. It felt…awful. Seele was used to the fatigue brought on by this sort of exertion, but she wasn’t just feeling exhausted, she was downright hurting. And it wasn’t hard to see why.

Her uplifted hands were shaking against the continued pressure, and her skin had begun peeling off. Black veins snaked down her fingers, her palms, and were even starting to creep down her wrists, leaving the flesh around them pale and burned. She was burning from arcane aftershock. And…she felt a slight wetness on her lips, and on her ears. A quick flick of the tongue confirmed her suspicion: blood. …it…hurts…

"Drop it! Your--We have to run!" Kazuki shouted to her.

“Door…go…right…behind ya!” She’d wanted to say more, but it had taken a fair amount of composure just to squeeze those words out. She could make that run, totally, sure, absolutely. Probably. But speed didn’t look like the forte for some of them, especially with recovering wounded, and she was going to give her team as much time as she could to get to safety before she let that ceiling drop one more inch.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Bekei stood in the doorway, motioning for everyone to pass through. “Come on! Go, go, go!” His eyes were locked on Seele, however, who was exhausting herself to maintain her magic. “Seele, you need to let go! We’re not out of this dungeon yet, and we still need you!” He gripped his greatsword and slammed it into the stone floor, channeling his magic into it.

Gaia’s Protection. He’d spent over and hour when he’d first started playing Pariah simply studying which schools of magic and what elements to take. He knew he wanted to play a tank; the leadership role and responsibility meant that people would rely on him in game; that was something he desired above all else. It seemed that the majority of players, especially tanks, trended towards enhancement; boosting their skills and their power on themselves.

But a tank had to lead everyone and that meant protecting everyone; front line and back. That’s when he realized how powerful conjuration magic could be; he could shift the ground itself into a protective form without relying too much on his own stamina to hold the conjuration. Rock and dirt was solid, and when bound together, would hold together long enough to protect against attacks. He didn’t need to rely on too much concentration or stamina to hold the form together once the spell was completed.

Stone and earth began to shift in the room, and a pillar of stone began to shift and turn towards the middle of the room; building itself up atop the stone floor. The height was only so high, roughly six-feet. But it could hold the ceiling for a little bit longer; enough to help Seele and the others get out.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

They had to move. Their path to escape came grinding open just as the barrier that held up the ceiling began to flicker and fail. With all those holes torn into it it looked like it should've fallen much earlier, yet Seele kept it up all the same. She'd poured her all into protecting them and it was tearing her apart, literally. Kazuki was shouting at her to flee. Her strength was failing-- her body crumbling-- yet she insisted everyone else get to safety first. She was the only one that could hold it. Benkei said to hell with that.

A sword slammed into stone, cracking it. Magic ran through the shifting dirt like lightning in a thunderstorm: sharp, jagged and wickedly quick. It reached the stone underneath and willed it upward, tearing up from the tiles in the center of the room to meet the falling roof. Its shape was not unlike its caster's fist. His earthen construct would hold; not for long, but it would hold.

That was the signal to put their asses into gear. Graves reached down to wrap an arm under hers, taking her weight onto his shoulder. "Ya did good, kid. Time to go." The two of them were off, moving as quickly as Seele could manage. He had to pick her back up more than once on their jog across the room,making sure to keep his head down to avoid getting a last minute haircut.

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Enos blinked, “Guys… Atlas isn’t getting back up.”

“What’d’ya mean he ain’t getting up? That’s not normal.”

“I’m using as much magical energy as I can, but he’s… not healing. He’s bleeding out.”

“Players don’t bleed out in Pariah.”

Aaginim frowned as he kneeled down, checking for Atlas’ pulse. It wasn’t a normal thing to check for, but between his own instincts as the son of a nurse and all of the weird things that were happening it made some modicum of sense to the blonde-haired tank. As his fingers touched the man’s neck Aaginim’s eyes widened and he took a step back, looking at his hand in shock.

Atlas wasn’t bleeding out. He was dead. The ogre had crushed his body with his bare hands before throwing him aside, as the rest of them focused on the ambush of goblins and ogres. They were dealt with now, but Atlas wasn’t getting back up. Between the pain Siegfried had witnessed by a stray goblin arrow and the fatigue Priscilia was feeling from her spells… this was going well beyond a glitch. They needed to turn back but he knew the way they came was blocked off. He wasn’t sure they would be able to force their way out and they had no intent to go through the room of fire and lightning traps all over again.

“He’s dead.” He said, “The ogre… killed him.”

He turned to look at Enos and then at Luci. People didn’t die in Pariah. They got back up and you’d heal them, but it was as if Atlas had been crushed in a car accident. He was gone. What the hell was happening?

“It’s my fault.” Enos said, cutting the silence, “I shoul—I should’ve done something else. We knew these glitches were messing with us. We knew… and I killed him.”

“You didn’t kill him, Enos.”

Enos looked down at the ground as he fell to his knees, dejected.

“Enos, you—” The pink-haired spellcaster held up her arm as a bright flash of light materialized in front of them, “—wait, what the hell is that?”

They were about to get their answer.

-
-

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

It didn’t take long for the group to move out of the room as the ceiling came downward, eventually reaching the floor with a loud click. For those just at the doorway if they looked back there would be nothing but a stone wall.

As they regrouped at a clearing Rael hunched against a near wall before observing everyone’s conditions closely. The fatigue, the pain, the confusion. It was likely that she was trying to piece things together but she couldn’t imagine what. “Glitches are getting worse.” She remarked before asking if Graves was okay. It was out of character for the snarky rogue to care but this wasn’t a time to play pretend bully or edgy asshole. She had played since her father brought back the periphal for Pariah Online a few days before its official release. Her father was on the Board of Directors for the Mizushima Gaming Corporation. It was why she got access early when the kinks were being polished pre-release.

The glitches she had seen in her year of playing had never been this weird and potentially dangerous.

The neurological technology was fascinating and she had been going to school for computer programming and data management. The ramifications of you being harmed in your dreams were never something one had to worry about, but what if someone messed with that, too? What if some elaborate hacker was trying to punish them out of some sick desire to put gamers in their place? It wasn’t the best hypothesis but it was the best one she could make.

“I can’t access my console menu. We’re vulnerable. This—”

As Rael was about to explain her hypothesis a bright light materialized before them. A hologram. A game attendant. She hadn’t seen one of them in months since they talked about some tweaks to the framework and that their console controls would be unavailable. Finally. Some answers.


“Greetings, wayfarers from all walks of life! We entities from beyond the veil require your immediate attention no matter what you are doing! It appears that—”

The projected image’s wide smile dropped into an immediate frown. Rael raised a brow as she looked on to what was basically a game moderator break character. Suffice to say her curiosity was piqued.

“—who am I kidding, I can’t do this like some idiot cosplayer.”

“There’s been a priority one issue with all servers to the game and we ask you to retreat to somewhere safe immediately. This is not a prank or a joke. This is serious. The connection to your devices has been corrupted so much to the point we cannot log you out or adjust the issue and we have been trying for several hours. It is best noted for your personal safety that you immediately vacate your current quests until the issue is resolved.”

Rael nodded, this much she had figured out. This was a hack, not a glitch. This was intentional. It was good that she was right, but admittedly she didn’t feel too great being right for the first time in her life.

“If your life energy is depleted to zero you will… you will die. Not your character. Not your avatar. You will die. Whoever is endangering the system has caused it that if you die you will go braindead. We are unsure why this error is even possible, but due to several reports it is very much the case. We will attempt to keep you updated. We are trying our hardest to keep you alive but something is very wrong. You need to bunker down. Please stay alive. We will keep you updated and we will punish whoever is doing this.”

Rael blinked as the manifestation of the attendant faded from ‘existence’. Leaving her group… and likely Aagnim’s to ponder what they were going to do when they were stuck in the middle of a dungeon. They couldn’t go back. There was no going back, only forward.

She looked to her companions and immediately saw their armor crack.

Location: The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Anger burned in Graves' chest even as the group caught a moment's rest. They were collapsing along the corridor around him, exhausted and harried. He paced between them all, unable to keep still. Rael asked him if he was alright and he could only give her a nod. Graves was sure if he tried to speak he'd only end up yelling, and he knew that wouldn't be fair to her. He still had so much energy-- it infuriated him. One little misstep had taken him out of the action damn near immediately, forcing everyone else to pull his weight for him. His incompetence had almost killed Seele; how could he be so stupid? So reckless? Why'd a little pain cause him to run like a fucking coward?

He watched her slink against a wall, too hurt and too drained to even stand. She was ragged. The skin around her fingers had been sundered, her cheeks were still wet with blood leaking from her face and there was that black shit still running through her veins. It must've been the feedback from expending too much arcane energy- it wasn't something Graves had experienced personally, but he was vaguely aware of the mechanic. He'd never heard of it doing that to a person, though.

The distance closed between the two of them before he fully knew what he was doing. "Sit," he demanded, waving her down until she complied. Crouching next to her, Graves started peeling back her sleeves to get a better look at the damage she'd done to herself. It was...extreme. He could only imagine how excruciating it must've been. It'd take quite a lot out of him to fix, but it was the least he could do. Graves began undoing the straps on his own gauntlet.

With his other hand, he slid the nodachi from its scabbard and stood it up with its tip stuck in the floor. He moved the bare flesh of his arm against the edge. The steel was cold to the touch, damn near freezing compared to how humid it was in there. He sucked air between his teeth as he braced himself for the pain, then he cut. Two horizontal slashes, right next to each other. Blood began to flow immediately, so he was forced to release the sword and put pressure on the wound.

'Count to ten,' he told himself. 'That oughtta be enough.'

Once he reached ten he pulled his palm from his wrist: the two cuts were scarred over, and a large amount of blood was gathered in his open hand. "Keep still. This'll feel weird as hell." He warned. Then Graves took her hand in his. The pooled blood sprung to life, surrounded by arcane energy, and slithered inside her pores. It burned through her nervous system like a purging fire, destroying the corrupting substance in her bloodstream and repairing what physical damage it could find. The fatigue wasn't something he could fix, but he hoped this made up for earlier.

The process was nearly wrapped up when a bright light filled the room. He turned to look, and saw the familiar uniform of one of the game's attendants. It was about damn time somebody said something. What kind of sick freaks would just throw all these horrible new things in without saying something first?

But then the man began to speak, and Graves felt a terrible lump rising in his throat. It turned out this wasn't just a content update. This wasn't even the game glitching out. Everything that was happening-- the pain, the hunger, the gore-- it was being done to them. And that wasn't even the worst of it. That disk plugged into Andrew's temple was apparently wired to fry his brain if he ever died in the game. How close had some of them come to dying in there without knowing about this? How lucky were they to be alive?

The devs didn't seem to know why this was happening, or even who was behind it, but they'd apparently been unable to take control of Pariah back. "Hours?" Graves repeated. His voice was quiet, shaken. "You knew about this for hours and you didn't say anything?" He knew the man behind the hologram couldn't hear him. Knew that this message was going out to everyone. And yet he felt like he was standing in the room with one of those developers he'd met all those months ago at a 'con. He felt like one of those awkward but enthusiastic men who'd made a game he adored had just drove a dagger into his stomach.

What if they'd been told back when they were prepping for the raid? How many people would've been saved if they'd known to just not go in?

Graves turned suddenly, throwing all his weight behind his hand as he punched the wall. He wanted to scream. Sixteen people were trapped in this dungeon until they completed it-- the only way out was always at the other end. They'd have to run through this death trap-- he'd have to watch real people die-- and none of it had to happen.

Would anyone notice if he went? He lived alone...the only one he'd seen in months were his co-workers and his landlord.

Would anyone care?

He dropped to his knees, silent.

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

It was one thing or another with this entire thing, and thankfully everyone made it past that trap. Kalie felt a bit strange; as such, there’s fear now in this game or some such thing. She couldn’t shake a feeling of slight dread in the back of her mind. Many thoughts were rolling in her head, and she tried to calm down by breathing slightly. It was until Rael remarked about the glitches were getting worse. On her face were like no shit Sherlock, that was an understatement. ” I still have no idea what’s going on; why is this all happening?” Kalie questioned, concerned. She was definitely worried about everyone; all this was becoming too much for her.

Throughout this ordeal, Kalie completely forgot about her console since she usually does forget it from time to time. However, this was heavily important, and hopefully, there would be good news. She learned very quickly something was massively wrong, and she couldn’t access it at all. It caused her to have a slight mental break down because it is better to have access to something instead of not. The only small thing was Rael couldn’t access hers either, the small hell that there’s something god awful happening. ” W-What…? H-How… Vulnerable… No. I don’t want this at all.” Kalie said, flabbergasted and utterly terrified. She joined this game to take a break from her real life, and it’s basically all the reasons everyone played this game.

Therefore, the thing that happened next was definitely bright. Basically, a game attendant appeared before them. Kalie had a definite hope this would give some answers to what is going on. It took her a bit of time to take a breather by relaxing somewhat. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be completely panicky in front of a game attendant. It didn’t take long for her to notice the game attendant stop roleplaying, so to speak. Her eyes opened a bit wide; why would he do that was written all over her face. ’ Uhh, I don’t like where this is going...’ Kalie thought to herself with a grimace on her face.

Kalie listened to what the Attendant had to say very carefully, so she doesn’t leave anything out of it. It made her shake when she heard it wasn’t a prank or joke, a serious thing happened, and it involves they cannot log them out of the game. She blinked a few times since they are in a dungeon right now. The one thing was Rael looked like the only person in her group that had some idea what’s going on, which scared her. In the back of her mind, ’ What does this mean?’ It was one of the few things she tried to focus on in the back of her mind. The one thing she can’t be a roleplayer if this terrible shit happened like this, it's dreadful.

It broke her when the attendant said that you would die in real life if you die in-game. Kalie burst into tears and sat down on the ground, rocking herself. She didn’t expect this would be an announcement, but it was and the most dreadful one too. It hurt her entire being, making her feel like one false move will end in her death. She waited until after the attendant had left before she would start up talking about things. ” N-No, W-Why D-Does this have to happen? I-I don’t want to die… I-I don’t want to die… P-Please...” Kalie said, shaken and utterly devastated. She was tearful and couldn’t help herself because all she had done in this game means nothing if she’s going to die. It means, her trying to become an English Teacher means nothing too. ” I-I wanted to teach English… but… but… I might not be able to.” Kalie said with her hands on her face crying.

Kalie, the always the one who was acting like a two-faced bitch, a suspicious and deadly assassin, was showing her true colors. Her true colors are of a woman who was becoming a teacher for the students in her state to help the new generation. If it weren’t for her parents in cooling her jets, she would have never played this game. However, she would probably be unhappy and unable to take out her frustrations at work or in her life. She was thrilled in Pariah Online, and it was entertaining to enjoy the game. Though choices do have consequences, hers were many in this game as a PvPer in Gloro Inquisitors. ’ Susan Noel Hughes… I’m sorry for being an awful little sister… you hated it… I knew… I knew… I knew you didn’t love me… but I tried every little thing for you to notice me.‘ Kalie thought to herself, crying her eyes. She tried her hardest for her sister to notice her, but nothing ever worked. Obviously, she wanted to create the Gloro Inquisitors to be with her older sister. However, that backfired on her with the allegations of breaking the guild’s rules and everything else.

Location: The Dungeon, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria

---

Rael bit her lip, mulling over the thoughts as her group took the news… how normal people would take that kind of news.

Had anyone been able to look beyond Rael’s beguiled expression they would’ve seen a distinct difference between themselves and their red-haired comrade. Rael’s emotions weren’t full of dread or panic. In fact, it was the exact opposite. She just didn’t show it, but that was perhaps due to an entire childhood of being told to present herself perfectly. It was almost second nature to not show weakness even though in the real world she saw herself anything but strong. It’s part of why Pariah had been her escape. A world absent from the perception of the Moriyama Family, one of those ancient bloodlines that had earned her all of the prestige with all of the pressure on top of it.

“We’re descended from the Tokugawa Clan. Don’t forget.” The words of her father echoed in her head.

“A Moriyama should get higher scores than you did.” Her mother’s murmurs entered the backline of her brain, reminding her of her entrance exam into Tokyo U.

Initially, leaving Kōriyama for Tokyo was supposed to be a blessing. A place away from her parent’s snipes and putdowns. But it was even worse. Her classmates acted like she thought she was better than them and her professors didn’t even notice her because she wasn’t particularly impressive. Hanako Moriyama was no overachiever and she was certainly not someone people noticed unless it was to scoff or scold her for something. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t some genius child prodigy. The real world wasn’t a slice of life manga. It’s why Pariah Online meant so much to her. As Rael she had power. Control. She insulted people before they insulted her. Putdown them before they could think to condescend or patronize her. Laughed in their faces. But beyond all the moxie and gloating she did feel a peace in the simulation. Her parents weren’t expecting her to be the best, Rael was just… good. Naturally good at silly fantasy things. It felt good, so good that when she started trying she entered the Top 50 players.

Pariah Online was her rock and she felt more powerful and herself in-game then out-of-game. In fact, she felt more like herself than anywhere else even if she had basically used the same tactics that hurt her on others. It wasn’t a thought that crossed her mind at the moment, though, given the circumstances of the lethality of the game and all of the more real aspects of the world coming to life. It felt exhilarating and a little bit exciting. Not that she wanted to die, but really at the end of the day she didn’t care if Hanako Moriyama died. Her parents didn’t care for her as a child, only a tool. That’s why she was in the middle of marriage negotiations with someone she didn’t even know. They were to get married after she finished University. She laughed at the thought in her head. What would be more glorious than giving the proverbial middle finger to both her parents and his by dying. Couldn’t find much use for a corpse, could they?

She was free.

For the first time in her life she was completely free.

She looked to Graves. He was stunned and annoyed that they didn’t have the gall to tell them until now. A fair point, but time ran differently in Pariah. They were technically in a dreamscape and the technology was a prototype. Then again, the general public didn’t know that. They didn’t know they were buying into experimental tech for a desperate company. So desperate they had changed their name from Koete Interactive to the Mizushima Gaming Corporation, banking on Toshiro Mizushima’s new ideas so much they could make a brand around it. The only reason she knew this was because of her family’s connections. Things were complicated. But it wasn’t the time to explain that kind of thing while Kalie was crying and Alja was breaking into a full-blown panic attack.

She looked at Benkei and then Kazuki. They were Japanese. Were they unfazed like she was? She wondered the thought before releasing the staff of her spear as it leaned back against the stone wall. She didn’t know why, but she moved to Kalie and put her hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t sure how to comfort her or Alja.

She wasn’t certain what to say. She couldn’t say “it was going to be okay” or “you’re not going to die”. It wouldn’t be fair to lie about something like that. Instead she managed one thing.

“Hey.” She said, putting her other hand on the opposite shoulder, “I’m with you.”

“I won’t let you die.”