Chapter 46: Liminal Space

Azwold had often made me wait to open our well-earned quest loot. He was not here. It was just the box and I.

So I opened it.

[Gnarlroot the Eld has reached level 36!]

The glimmery fanfare of my level gain intermixed with a deeper insight. Every Telemoon guild member was a regular human being out-of-game, like I once was. What stopped them from collaborating out there, too?

They had engineered out-of-game servers to host “pocket dimensions.” A guild who kidnaps gods should not have that kind of technology. One such pocket—this Hourglass Sandfall dungeon—may have saved my barkskin during the shutdown, but that notion did not stop me from wanting Telemoon gone.

Once I had made my exit, of course.

A glimmering cascade of gold coins twirled into my money pouch and I became 650gold richer. I felt encouraged with a few coins to rub together. Money; one of the cleverest and most convenient evil tools ever imagined, carrying weight even in fictional worlds.

[Gnarlroot the Eld has learned [Spell: Slow Time]].

I bent backward, tilting toward a timber, but regained myself. I had never heard of the Time Magic school. Simultaneous feelings and opinions struck me. Giving control of time to individuals seemed unwise. I was skeptical. At the same time, I brainstormed ways such a spell could be useful; irresistible imaginings.

I called the spell’s information up on my tablet:

[Spell: Slow Time]: Once per day, the caster diminishes server-wide speed to one quarter of normal. This effect lasts 2.5 minutes server-wide, and 10 minutes for the caster. To others, you appear to move in quick-motion. Costs the entirety of caster’s maximum mana pool.

I stood amazed. A spell like this could solve all but the rarest of problems. I supposed good timing would make the best use of it. Once per day. Not to be wasted. But waiting for a perfect use might cause better chances to slip by. I wondered whether it meant ‘day’ as in the in-game day/night cycle. Or if it meant per out-of-game day length.

My mental meandering lagged as if hit by my new spell when my gaze fell upon a bronze scepter. Materializing upon the folds of a rich brocade within the brick lockbox, the scepter’s glimmering lines flowed into my mind, much like the [Hive Scepter]’s sometimes did. I knew it was a Spirit Mage item.

The [Sandfall Scepter]’s handle was of polished oak, banded and shaped with a comfortable looking grip. The head of it came up in four varnished and filigreed dowels. In between was a winding, never-ending game of cat’s cradle string. And hanging in a central orb, strung taut as if in spider’s wire, was an hourglass.

Not Belvan’s. Smaller, made of different components.

I had held the [Hive Scepter] before. I could not deny that I felt more powerful wielding it. But now that it was a permanent addition to me, enshrouded in honeycomb wax, I wondered if I should replace the Mage’s lost class tool. Like Vick5 without his Telemoon Chemist classification, Azwold lacked means to perform his full list of spells and abilities without a class weapon.

I would think on it.

The brick-bronze chest had bestowed all its contents. It lay empty, then dematerialized, faded to pixel dust, and added itself to Glassaur the Bronze’s pile.

The ease with which things could reduce to dust in RoL was discouraging. Even with fresh loot, I was not out of the caves yet; just a bony little dragon with a sad hoard of dusty hallways.

I pondered. There was time for it. How would I know when the server came back online? If I was indeed hiding inside one of Telemoon’s ‘pocket dimensions,’ I needed to devise a proper plan to get back into the real game.

I noticed shavings of bark on the cavern floor. The boss must have carved me up a little during battle. I bent to collect [Gnarlroot Shavings], stashing them in a pocket absent-mindedly as I contemplated my predicament.

When the others log back on, will my tablet alert me? It sounded like a reasonable way to learn of the server’s revival. Belvan had pinged my tablet while inside the dungeon, but could my party alerts reach me here, too?

My mind turned toward the dungeon’s denizens lurking away in the darkness. If I took ownership of the [Sandfall Scepter], and with my new abilities... With [Spell: Barkskin*] and [Spell: Slow Time], I reckoned I stood a chance at clearing them out.

But the idea sunk away from me as quickly as it had arrived. There were better ways to earn experience than slaying monster kin for personal gain. If I equipped the [Sandfall Scepter], it could bind to me, making it impossible to trade to Azwold. The only offense the spiders made was bundling me up in their disgusting yarns. And the Dinofolk, all they did was get in my way. No. An excess of curiosity had caused enough trouble for one day.

I would simply wait.

A faint chirping gradually magnified to cacophonous echoing screeches. I ducked as the colony of bats returned to roost in the dark nooks above. Their chaotic chattering dwindled to a leisurely smattering of peeps.

Peering up, I thought mayhap I should relocate. I had little interest in learning when the first drizzles of guano might start.

I returned my gaze groundward lest anything fall into my sockets. And I saw the cave wall ripple in an oblique and watery way. The anomalous, rippling graphical matrix reminded me of my escape from Alkali Hollow.

Something like a short scarecrow made of Gadget Craft materials stepped out, leaving a pixelated net of square-angle lines behind. The lines zoomed in like abstract snakes.

“Gnarlroot_The_Eld,” said Vick5, “we must exit this dimension with haste.”

I gladly followed, though I asked; “Is the server back up?”

“The main server status is ‘offline,’” he said without turning his head, proceeding to where his portal had appeared.

“Then where are we going to?”

“Back to my Liminal Space,” he said.

I hesitated.

“You must not stay,” he said. “Telemoon is aware of the abnormal activity occurring within this instance.”

“What do you mean by ‘Liminal Space’”?

“Telemoon has ongoing portal technology experiments,” he said. “I discovered a digital hideaway. It exists within a physical fiberoptic cord connecting two of Telemoon’s servers out-of-game.”

I was right to hesitate. I did not want to be right.

“And if they discover us hiding there? Could they trap us?”

“Theoretically,” he shrugged. “This exit will evaporate from existence shortly. Please follow me.”

He held his control glove up to where the wall had gone glitchy with ripples. The wire-thin energy lines scribbled themselves out again like ivy tendrils winding outward through brick and mortar crevices. The wall went wavy.

Vick5 walked into it and dematerialized.

I stood for a mere moment, then leapt to follow.

My mind electrified. I felt like a laser beam, traveling through a world of prisms and infinity mirrors which parted like flowing water. A wire-thin dimension of energy and light and sharp fluidity.

And then, almost as an afterthought, like I could have imagined it, we re-materialized elsewhere. I watched my hand bones compose themselves, emulating Glassaur the Bronze’s fate but in reverse.

The sun blazed at me. I winced and shielded my brow, forgetting that I had no pupils in my eye sockets to contract at a shift from stygian dark to scintillating light. The orange sphere in the sky sunk toward a distant, craggy horizon.

“What happened to us?” I asked, surveying the barren Nevahjian Desert landscape.

“The server initiated re-boot procedures while we were still in our fluid-energetic state. I hypothesize the game detected irregularities and repositioned our avatars to a random location near Hourglass Sandfall.”

“Are we near?” I said, looking at my tablet for orientation.

“Relatively,” he shrugged. “Nearness definitions depend on one’s spatial context.”

“Fair enough. Our destination lies yonder,” I made a knuckly gesture toward the Nevahjian Enclave. “The city of black glass.”

Desert dust cast the city in a much deeper silhouette of mirage than from balloon basket heights.

The ex-Chemist made a sour face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“[Spell: Dimensional Ripple], liquid-energy travel, transversing liminal space… these things leave a strange taste in one’s mouth. Molecular reorganization generates metallic, minty orange flavors.”

“How do players experience sensation?” It seemed a natural time to feed this particular curiosity.

“The game’s architects developed technology to interact with the quantum field of human brains. It produces accurate sensory detail for almost any scenario.”

“A quantum field?”

“Many classical brain models assumed that information and electrochemical conduits of communication in the human brain function like electrons moving through a wire,” Vick5 explained. “Which, incidentally, is also a debatable model of how electromagnetism functions.” He manipulated his arm device to summon his Matte Brown Techno Dune Buggy. A clanking of metal poles and a twisting of gears rattled before us, materializing as a mount.

“Digression apologies,” he said, continuing. “But the mind is more accurately described as a fluid and dynamic field, capable of unfathomably complex calculations; a capacity for near infinite novel organizations of energy patterns.”

We got into his vehicle. My thoughts drifted toward Vick5’s monologuing, and how it was as jargon-riddled as Azwold’s. Perhaps more so. I had an easier time believing Vick5 knew what he was talking about, though. Big words and supporting evidence help.

I peered at the desert sprawling around us. Vick5 had not started the vehicle yet. He appeared to be awaiting something.

“Did you not say the server was back up?” I said. “We would still be in your hideaway if it was down.”

“Correct.” He adjusted his headpiece and began scanning.

“Strange that none of our party has re-entered the game, is it not?”

“Correct.” He was still scanning our vicinity from his captain’s bucket seat. The buggy’s helm wheel had a more triangular, butterflied style to it than the [Helm Wheel] tangled in my shoulder blades.

“I hypothesize that a temporary initiation phase is in progress,” said Vick5. “We may be the only non-NPC entities within the live server at present.”

“If I recall,” I said, “the rest of the party should log on wherever the party leader happens to be.”

“That is my understanding,” he said, starting the buggy. Its engine clanked and boiled, then settled into a low idle. “Although it may be worth mentioning that I am neither the sole occupant of liminal space nor user of portal technologies. It is feasible we are not the only server occupants, but if so, we are among a fadingly minuscule percentage.”

I noticed with a twinge of envy that Vick5 was marked ‘party leader.’ The interface allowed for voluntary transferal of party leadership. I did not ask for it, though. Were I captain of our vessel, perhaps I would see it differently.

Instead, I gazed out amongst the desert dust and the falling twilight. I fantasized about the city’s insides.

The Matte Brown Techno Dune Buggy cut a dramatic swath of alkaline dust as we passed. I could only hope the Nevahjian Enclave grew closer, because at top speed we only inched toward the dark hologram on the horizon. It appeared to linger equidistantly. Always ahead of us, like the sandy rivulets that led me beyond the Sphinx.