001 – A New Dawn

001 – A New Dawn

“Ms. Kanbara—Pursuant to a change in your household status and in accordance with the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area Housing Act (Revised April 18, 2108), Article 4, Section 2B, it is mandated that you vacate Meguro Spire #11-1701 (Family Residential) within 30 days. An appropriate single-person residence has been assigned to you in Setagaya Ward. Your cooperation in the equitable distribution of housing resources is greatly appreciated. We are sorry for the loss of your family.”

-Message from the Tokyo Public Housing Commission, Bereavement-Related Relocations Office, 8 Years Ago

Everyone said it was impossible to win against the devs, even in a game where your every word and action could shape the magic—and the world—around you. So naturally, Ai Kanbara spearheaded an effort to turn the game’s own logic against it.

For Ai, the past eight years of single-minded effort were personal. If she could change the very rules of the game, she could break free of the shackles that her own mind imposed on her.

All around her, the world of the VRMMO A Dirge for the Sun was a canvas of barely-ordered chaos. Her avatar’s golden braid whipped around in the wind as immense magics were cast all over the battlefield in the PvP war to end all PvP wars.

It’s just a game, most players would have said. Had said to her face, even. But the systems of Dirge rewarded roleplay with tangible power, and every bit of her considerable might was hard won. Every single thought, every single movement counted, so she made it a point to embody the results she needed.

Ai’s guildmates were buying her time.

All she had to do now was enact a ritual that would merge dozens, perhaps hundreds of incompatible gods that were forcibly harvested from every corner of the game into a single, amalgamated being, all so she could assemble a titanic God-Engine that would change everything.

A low whine drew her attention. Aru, her loyal companion, pressed his fuzzy white head against her leg, his feathered tail giving a single, anxious whump against the stone. She reached down, her fingers scratching a familiar spot behind his ears, a small anchor in the storm for both of them.

“We’ve got this, boy.” She said, more for her own benefit than his.

Ai walked up the slick obsidian steps to the ritual site, Aru at her heels. Atop a pedestal lay the vessel of the God-Engine Nor, waiting to be filled. It was, for all intents and purposes, an NPC, a purpose-built biological anchor for the god-engine. It was a man, if a man were made of silver-gold metal and bled black ichor. Its chest rose and fell in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.

In Dirge, magic was tied to meaning.

She reached out, the game’s system assist allowing her consciousness to touch the nascent mind of the vessel—hundreds of gods that had been chopped up and grafted together for this purpose—and a sprawling, continent-spanning network of great wardstones that her allies had spent months building. Distinct systems, needing to be braided into a single, self-sustaining entity.

Ai poured everything she had into the weaving of the spell, every second of her years upon years of effort fueling her magic. Five concepts formed the core of the new god-engine, but would soon be joined by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of others. She felt the system assist her as she wove them together, her thoughts a blur.

[Sun]-[Perpetuity]-[World]-[Humanity]-[Divinity].

After what felt like hours but was barely a minute of overwhelmingly precise spellwork, Ai made her personal sigil to end it: a simple hand-seal of a circle formed by her thumb and forefinger. She’d used it since the game’s alpha – her signature. Her mark on the fabric of reality.

And so it shall be.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, a wave of pure gold light erupted from the vessel, washing over the dais, across the crater, and into the sky.

The Sun rose over Varranir. To Ai, it seemed a gentle but implacable ascension.

[CONGRATULATIONS]

[PLAYER [AYLE] HAS COMPLETED WORLD QUEST “TITANOMACHY”]

[HARK! A NEW DAWN APPROACHES]

A game-wide announcement rang through the entire battlefield, and in response, players and NPCs alike began to put down their arms.

Familiar figures began to appear at the edges of the ritual site, numbering twelve in all. They ascended the steps with aplomb. These were the members of Karravar [kava], her guild, her closest and only friends. [Stormold] with his thunderous, mischievous belly-laugh. [Fenocian], quiet and reserved. The cheery [sunny_side_up], friendly and always helpful [Hadrian’s_Fyre], dark and clever [Blackbright]…

A joyful bark cut through the air as Aru ran at Ai, his claws scrabbling on the slick obsidian floor and his entire body wriggled with barely contained excitement. Ai laughed, kneeling to pull him into a hug.

Notifications began to flood into her feed as the completion of the World Quest gave its rewards, but none of it mattered in the moment. A great and terrible weight, the accumulation of years of effort, of hopes and failures and endless, grinding work, fell away from her shoulders.

Ai smiled to herself. It was over. They had won. She had won.

Maybe now, she could finally move on.

“Thanks for taking all the aggro. Handling PvP against [TheZeusIsLoose] would have been a nightmare.” Ai said to [Stormold]. Her headset was on her futon instead of its usual perch on her head, so she spoke louder so that the microphone could pick her voice up better.

“I’m the tank. It’s my job!” [Stormold]’s belly laugh came from the headset’s speakers, “Besides, there’s only room for one God of Thunder in this game.”

There was a long but comfortable moment of silence between the two friends as they sat in their shared victory.

“…You sure you’re not gonna stay logged in for the afterparty?” [Stormold] finally asked.

“Yeah. Go have fun. You guys deserve it. For me though, I think it’s finally time.” Ai declared.

”Time? What do you mean, ti… Oh. Oh!”

“Yeah. While I’ve still got momentum. This is it. I can feel it.”

“Alright, well, I said it once, and I’ll say it again. You can do it, Ai. This is a huge step for you. I’ll hold the fort here, tell everyone you’re celebrating IRL. Wish you luck.” [Stormold] responded.

“Thanks, Aedan.”

“What’re friends for, Ai? Now shoo, you got this.” [Stormold]—Aedan—ended the call with a blip. Dirge’s native voice chat automatically asked for Ai’s feedback on the call quality, which she ignored.

Hopefully, he and her other guildmates would enjoy themselves. Ai, on the other hand, needed to get her head in the game. She shook her head in an attempt to summon up some focus; her unkempt black hair fell in untended tresses around her.

Everything Ai had been working for in-game was her way of proving to herself that she could finally muster up the strength of will to leave her goddamn apartment.

Depression was funny like that.

For the last eight years, Ai was unable to do the seemingly simple task of opening the door and walking outside. She’d become a hikikomori, a shut-in, after her parents’ sudden deaths. For the longest time, the only version of Ai that had mattered was her persona as [Ayle], Guildmaster of Karravar [kava].

Not anymore.

Ai closed her eyes, seeing that golden sunrise over Varranir that marked her triumph. She felt the phantom weight of Aru’s head on her leg. The strength she had felt as [Ayle] as she cleared the World Quest and ended Titanomachy was hers.

It had been Ai who had led her Karravar and spearheaded the development of the Grand Coalition’s final strategy. Ai had been the one to unlock the fateful World Quest. The one to put in thousands of hours of work, organizing and theorizing and agonizing endlessly over spell design and inter-guild politics.

Against all of that, how difficult could it be to turn a doorknob?

Ai stood up, and made her way to the front door. Her hand found itself clenched around the doorknob – an anachronism in an era of digital control, but one the human mind seemed to require.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author’s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The doorknob moved with a sudden gachunk. Ai’s hand had, it seemed, finally found the strength to turn the stupid hunk of metal. The movement signaled the residence management VI to unlatch the door with a friendly beep and a tinny click. Ai took a deep breath. Then another. Then she pushed the door open and stepped over her threshold.

And so, Ai Kanbara left her apartment for the first time in eight years. The world seemed to pause, just for a moment, before she stepped—

[AT LONG LAST]

[SYNCHRONIZATION ACHIEVED]

[INCUBATION ENDED]

[—]

[—]

[—]

[—ETERNITY—]

[—]

[—]

[—]

[HOMECOMING IMMINENT]

[REJOICE]

[MAY SHE SING OUR DIRGE FOR THE SUN]

—onto dusty sandstone, her wyrmleather sandals making contact with a gravelly crunch. There was a thrum of magic in the air, familiar and comforting. Where before she was breathing the cold, recycled air of her megabuilding, it was now warm, dry, and ancient.

She whirled around to find that her doorway, and indeed the rest of her apartment, had disappeared into thin air. In her doorway’s place was an open sarcophagus of black stone, and all around her was a grand hall of polished sandstone with spellscript etched into every inch of its walls.