He made the big mistake

of dancing in my storm

— Lorde, Liability

Four hours earlier (a day earlier in gametime)

“I know you’re still here, Sarah.”

Sarah took a few steps back, silently. A maelstrom of different realms rotated beyond the windows, slowly but consistently.

She opened her Inventory once again, and reviewed the items at her disposal. A weird calm had invaded her, now that she was out of Uberyn’s sight. The Ring of Realms was rotating around her finger without her touching it; she was now guiding it with her mind. Just like she had to say the commands out lout to manage her Inventory and skills, but with practice, she could dispense with the vocalization, Sarah was now free to switch between the available items using just her thoughts. She revelled in this for a while, as Victor stood still, listening. Then she immersed herself in the quietness of the moment and let the environment speak to her.

It spoke the language of light.

The Worldjumper was invisible, but it was glistening, a gateway to thousands of worlds. Through the windows, all she could see was a whirlpool of changing light; essentially the same thing as the ring, but rotating around the sky palace instead of her finger. Ring and fortress were one and the same, Sarah realized.

Uberyn was engulfed in light, too. But this light was bluish and faint, more akin to a cloud than a flame – it also had a direction, and a purpose. The light was code.

Is it too late?

Am I too late?

The ethereal current emanated from Uberyn himself, enveloped him like a thin atmosphere and flowed back toward the huge metallic door. Sarah now realized what was at the other side.

Victor Anderen was Uberyn and Victor Anderen was the Game Master. The artificial intelligence that was constantly monitoring the whole Anderverse, switching parameters, altering worlds, trying new things, building landscapes and sweeping races at will. At the other side of the door there was whatever representation the AI had chosen for itself in the game. Some kind of avatar? A double of Uberyn, maybe?

Part of Victor Anderen’s mind was here and part of Victor Anderen’s mind was there. The ethereal cloud of code was Victor’s mind being transferred to the AI, slowly but incessantly, until the process was complete.

Was it too late?

How much of Victor had already been transferred?

Sarah found only one way to avoid giving in to despair:

She punched Uberyn in the face.

It was completely ineffective toward her goal, but it felt awesome.

“What the f—?” Uberyn sputtered, stumbling backward. He raised his arms and a golden glow engulfed him. A second later he was the Golden Knight again, in full armor.

“Release us!” Sarah yelled, and lurched forward. A thought came up to the surface of her mind, almost instinctively: Retrieve pistol. Now the weapon was in her hand.

Sarah shot once, twice, thrice. The bullets crashed against the golden armor, shattered and bounced with a ping.

“Sarah—”

But she was on him already. She fell feet first on his head, in an improvised flying kick. Uberyn grabbed her leg and threw her aside. Sarah flew through the air, landed on her back with a painful thud, and slid back for a few meters.

“Uumph!”

Can he see me?

Uberyn was coming at her. Yes, he could see her. At least he could see where she was. His Perception reached cosmic levels, of course, so he was probably seeing a pretty clear outline of her body, even though she was at maximum Stealth.

Retrieve grenade launcher.

The Golden Knight was already grabbing her legs, raising her in the air in order to throw her around once more, but Sarah didn’t mind. She located the steel door, and without a second thought, she shot at it. Then, as she was being waved like a flag in the middle of the room, she shot again, just to make sure.

The grenades were spiky. They weren’t spiky before, when Sarah acquired the weapon; the game kept changing and evolving, which in this case benefitted her because instead of bouncing against the door, the grenades stuck to it. A little bit later, when she was already flying through the air to meet the floor again, they exploded.

“You can’t kill me, Sarah,” Victor said. “You can’t kill me as a player and you can’t kill me as the Game Master. Stop trying.”

“No!”

Sarah got up as fast as she could and sprinted toward the door, which now sported a sizable hole. She caught a glimpse of what was inside before Uberyn grabbed her by the shoulders and sent her flying for a third time.

It was a head. A gigantic head, bald, blue, with an inexpressive mouth and eyes full of wisdom and contempt.

It was looking at her.

Sarah waited for the floor but the floor didn’t come. This time she had been thrown with more force, and she didn’t land. She saw the head becoming smaller and smaller as her body flew backward, went through the window and entered the maelstrom of light and sound. She was now falling into another realm.

“I always loved your fierceness,” Uberyn said.

He sprinted forward and jumped through the window as well. They were both falling now, a shining man and an invisible girl, heading down to a world none of them had chosen.

* * *

The ice-cold water swallowed her before she noticed it was there. Sarah sank diagonally into the sea like a bullet, her whole body registering the impact with the watery mass. She was struck so hard that every bone and muscle ached as her Health indicator sank low too, and her lungs seemed to lose all the air at once.

Uberyn penetrated the water immediately after her like a torpedo, his golden armor pushing ahead at full speed.

As she sank deeper, procuring not to drown, Sarah frantically invoked her Inventory. There was a harpoon rifle now, but it would be useless against that golden armor. She compelled the ring to switch the available items. Then she found the Z-blaster and the differential bow. She still didn’t know what they were.

Retrieve differential bow, her mind screamed as her lungs complained about the lack of air.

The differential bow was more like a crossbow than a bow proper. Sarah pointed it at the shining knight and shot. Then, instinctively, she opened her mouth. Saltwater broke in, invading her throat, pushing inside, like a liquid tentacle.

There was an explosion. But it was the water itself that exploded.

For an instant, Sarah saw nothing, blinded by the white flash ahead. Then she could make out the shape of the Golden Knight behind the mass of electrified bubbles that swarmed furiously around him. Uberyn was in the middle of what looked like an electric cloud, his armor crisscrossed by moving flashes of energy, tearing it in all directions. The arrow, which was more like a harpoon, still attached to the differential bow through a long, resistant wire or string, was stuck in the middle of his beautiful chestpiece, radiating its mysterious, lethal energy.

But he was alive.

I failed, Sarah thought as she drowned. She closed her eyes and, pointlessly, tried to breathe. Her body started shaking, her respiratory system collapsing, as she kept sinking and sinking into the sea of a world she hadn’t even identified.

When she regained her conscience, she was flying.

No, not flying exactly.

She was in the air, about a hundred feet above the water, and falling fast.

I should have chosen the fucking fairy!

Sarah retched as what felt like three gallons of saltwater burst out of her mouth. She took a deep, desperate breath, and kept falling.

There was no land to be seen. This was a world of water, and nothing else.

Uberyn (Victor) was suspended in the air, still wearing his tattered armor that glistened under the sun of that strange realm. The differential bow’s “arrow” was still stuck into his chestpiece, and the wire with the weapon at the end was hanging in a straight line. Twin flames came down his boots, holding him in the air. Ah, he’s fucking medieval Iron Man now. How lovely.

The Golden Knight had dragged her up as he shot to the surface and then, when he stopped midair, Sarah had been ejected upwards, unconscious, but still holding the differential bow. The sudden jerk when the wire snapped back, ripping the weapon from her hands, had awoken her as she ended her upward arc and started going down.

Sarah kept falling. The water was getting closer and closer. She braced for impact.

Retrieve... Retrieve...

... what?

She frantically cycled through her Inventory, looking for anything that could save her.

Retrieve...

There it was. That would do.

... glider!

She felt the quick jerk up as the device appeared below her feet, stopping her fall and pushing her up. Sarah almost fell to the side but she could keep her equilibrium long enough for the locks to strap themselves around her ankles and insteps, securing her into position.

She descended slowly, until they were both at the same height. Sarah estimated that they were about fifty feet away.

“OK,” the Golden Knight said. “I didn’t want to kill you. I wanted for you to be with me. But now you pissed me off!”

A sudden blast of energy threw her back as Uberyn made a quick pass in the air. The golden armor disappeared in an instant, and now he was wearing some kind of streamlined, black-and-silver mecha suit.

“RELEASE US!” Sarah cried, and suddenly, without a conscious thought, she was holding the Z-blaster.

Skill acquired: Auto Retrieve

Uberyn deployed what looked like an energy shield: a circle of whirling, sparkling, transparent plasma, furrowed by flashes of green light.

Sarah pulled the trigger.

The electronic whooshing of the Z-blaster seemed to rip apart the world. The air took on a strange hue, something between purple and green, and it started to coalesce into thin bands centered into the blaster’s cannon. The bands took an undefinite shape, whirled around, extending through the space, and were slowly sucked inside the weapon.

A second later, the blaster blasted a blast.

The blast was so powerful that Sarah was sent flying backwards for a hundred yards. The released energy hit straight in the middle of Uberyn’s plasma shield, disintegrating it, and pushing him away into the horizon. The noise was even louder this time, and Sarah feared that her eardrums would explode. Then she feared that the whole atmosphere would catch fire.

The Z-blaster was a powerful weapon, although far too slow. Sarah realized that it was intended for use in a space battle, well outside an atmosphere, and guessed its purpose would be destroying small ships. It was far too powerful to use against one man, even one as overpowered as Uberyn. And now Uberyn was gone.

Sarah stored the weapon back in her Inventory and assessed the situation. Her mana count had dropped dramatically, and she had probably killed her opponent, but she couldn’t be sure. If so, she still had no clue about how to log out of the game, much less how to do it safely.

She needed to come up with a plan. Maybe Victor’s character as a player had been eliminated, but there was still the part of him that was in the AI, the Game Master... if Sarah could jump back to Inverness then maybe...

... but then she saw the dots in the sky. There were dozens of them, and they were coming at her.

They were all mounting gliders just like hers. Uberyn was in the middle of the formation. The rest seemed to be zombies or maybe scrawny soldiers.

Retrieve fiery chains.

Oh yes, she had the fiery chains, too. The Ring of Realms had picked them up in one of the worlds where they had gone fishing for players to send back.

Victor Anderen was now raiding NPCs to attack her. It wasn’t fair, but then again, nothing in this fucking game had been fair since she’d logged in.

The NPCs turned out to be both zombies and soldiers, with some goblins thrown in for good measure. They came at her in waves, surrounding her, flying around and trying to grab her, or stab her in the case of the soldiers. Sarah started waving the chains around as she rose. The attackers followed her, going up as well, while Uberyn stayed behind, controlling them somehow.

“You’re pretty wicked, you know?” he said. “I’ve always known you had it in you. Even before you showed it, I’ve known. I like that.”

“Release us!” Sarah exclaimed, and started rotating in place, lashing, whipping, and slicing with the chains. Two, three zombies lost their heads; a soldier lost an arm; one unfortunate goblin was torn in two when it jumped from his glider, trying to climb into hers.

“No,” Victor Anderen said.

A second later, he was gone.

But not before Sarah had a chance to Scrutinize him.

The Z-blaster had almost, almost, killed him. His Health indicator was abismally low, in the double digits. One shot with any regular gun would have destroyed him. But he wasn’t there anymore to be shot at.

Sarah rose as she kept waving the chains around, drawing a fiery circle in the air, tearing up hands and scalps whenever an enemy got too close.

Up there in the sky, the realms swarmed up, moving in a circle, ready to be chosen.

Where did he go?

Victor could be literally anywhere in the Anderworld. She had no way to know.

Or did she?

She kept rising, letting the remaining zombies and goblins follow her. And then she changed direction abruptly, sinking down, getting past them all.

They didn’t have time to react. An instant later, Sarah was jumping up.

There were thousands of realms, but again, there was some kind of instinct guiding her, making some worlds stand out over the others. She guessed that one of those was the realm Uberyn had chosen for his escape.

The glider shot her upwards, and then it wasn’t the glider anymore but the force of her jump what was sending her up to the Void, and from there, to a different realm in the Anderverse.

You can run and hide all you want, Victor, Sarah thought as she went through the abstract landscape between the worlds, a chaotic storm of cybernetic light and sound. But this ends today.