The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Cael faced the entrance to the replica cottage, while sitting 200 metres away under a dense cover of leaves. The thick foliage around this area meant that there was little chance of anyone approaching from any direction other than the cottage's.

"So, really, what's in there? It looks empty," said DicingDevil.

"It only triggers when the cottage is disturbed," Cael explained, "and if we disturb it, we'll be in for a long chase."

"This does look a lot like the old man's cottage just South of Kruxol. It's a bit eerie."

"More than a bit. Wait, be quiet, I hear footsteps."

A Knight, with red feathers on top of their spiked helmet, was loudly walking near the cottage. Soon, Cael heard the sound of another player following along, walking some distance behind.

"Why did they have to disturb us when we were preparing for the war?" moaned the Knight.

"Because you're strong and know the area!" shouted a strained, female voice from behind him. "It was either you or send 30 men."

"Sure. Anyway, this is an empty cottage, I passed it before, when we were doing Guild quests on the first day. It looks so much like the earlier one, wouldn't you say?" The Knight was showing off his knowledge of the location.

"Wow, that's really cool!" gushed the female.

As the Knight drew near the cottage, Cael saw that it was a level 61 player named [Areté] from [The Fountain]. DicingDevil crouched on edge, prepared to make a break for it if the Knight came in this direction. While a wall of leaves hid him from the casual observer, if the Knight walked in this direction then the hidden players would be spotted. It would be a difficult fight.

Cael, however, was less worried. Holding out his hand lazily, he used [Mana Push] to lightly shove one of the practice swords lying in the cottage's front corners. He saw the familiar spectre of the old man appear at the entrance to the cottage, still named [Szåffěúŕ]. The old man appeared right in front of the Knight, who looked up with surprise.

Areté put on an air of confidence and said, "Hello, sir, are you the owner of this -"

Cael heard a shocked gasp from the Knight, which almost sounded like a scream, when the old man turned around and the Knight saw the black, ragged holes of the old man's eyes and mouth revealed. The old man, who looked more like a hazy, partial silhouette than a person, bore down on Areté menacingly. The level above the old man's head still flickered between numbers over 900, and the Knight let out a quiet squeak as he saw the old man's level briefly display a set of '0's that went on for longer than the game could render.

As Areté tried flat-footedly to flee, the old man's hands grasped the Knight's left shoulder. The old man's mouth was by now a wide, gaping hole that took up most of his face, and it looked like a basking shark's mouth. He emitted a bat-like loud, high-pitched screeching noise from it, and the Knight felt as if the world was standing still. The old man withdrew his right hand from the Knight, and moved it in a sweeping motion as if he was holding a sword. His hand was empty, so the attack didn't seem to have an actual point. However, Cael saw the space in front of the old man tear into a mass of black-and-white disorderly fragments swirling in fractals and swapping places, where the absent sword would have passed. This included much of Areté's back, which collapsed into the erratic black-and-white maelstrom as he screamed. Cael could see black-and-white shapes resembling Areté's spine spinning around behind him and dissolving, and Areté seemed to feel an intense spinal pain that caused him to collapse to the ground.

The old man roared something which sounded like, "Congratulations." He then lunged at Areté's head as if to stab it, and Cael saw the Knight's head collapse into hundreds of tiny black-and-white fragments swirling around in the air. The Knight was now headless, but still seemed to scream from above his neck. Cael wasn't sure how the Knight could scream without a head.

By now, the girl following behind the Knight had reached the old man, and screamed defiantly, "Leave my B.F. alone!" She had been tempted to run for it, but was too invested in her relationship with this Knight, which she viewed as her best chance to taste success and power while trapped in here.

The old man coldly turned to her, and saw that she was a Mage. He raised his hand, as if to cast a spell. Cael saw the words [Mana Push] appear above the man's hand, an elementary spell which the old man had typically used to demonstrate the power of magic to young Mages. However, instead of casting this spell, the air above the old man's palm dissolved into black and white fragments, and the girl's body shattered into veiny cracks, like badly cracked glass, in a way which mirrored the air above the old man's palm.

"Run for it, Britt!" shouted Areté.

Though the female tried to run away, the old man gruffly chanted something which sounded like 'mana.' The girl's body pulled itself apart forcefully, along the lines where she had shattered earlier. The girl tried to scream, but her throat would not let her. Blood oozed freely along the ground.

Soon, she was dead. Pieces of her body fell like feathers to the ground.

"No! Not Britt! No!" screamed the Knight.

Impatiently, the old man turned back to the headless Knight. He cast a spell named [Black Palm]. Cael recognised the name as belonging to a necromancer spell. However, the spell's animation resembled the cleric's [Black Star] spell instead, a small black rip appearing in the air above the old man and pulsating shadows around it. Even so, it did not function like either of those spells. It seemed to deal heavy damage, quickly reducing the Knight's HP to 0, but without seeming to affect the Knight's body which kept screaming.

The old man then used the spell [Shapeshift], and transformed into what looked like a large, fragmented raven. He perched on the Knight's body and grotesquely began to eat the Knight's carcass and entrails until the Knight quietly gave in to that good night. DicingDevil had averted his eyes. Cael was curious about what could have triggered this behaviour in an NPC, but realised that - other than the increasingly blurred boundaries between NPCs and the world outside the game - the NPC had not been trying to eat the Knight out of peckishness, and was only eating him as a way to swallow away what remained of a creature who, according to his 0% HP, should not have been there. It was a primitive, slightly grotesque way to manually simplify what, in the old man's AI-like estimation, should not exist.

The old man had been unable to process the 0% HP, so he took automatic steps to simplify and process it. Once Areté died, the old man's AI was satisfied. He stood up, then vanished into the air.

"No kidding," whispered DicingDevil, keeping his voice muted to avoid risking the old man's return.

"Did you see the thing's level?" Cael whispered back.

"Oh yeah, like 1000+? It was going to crazy numbers."

"I don't think a player can even come close, max level is like 300-500?"

"350."

"Yes."

"Yeah, it's ridiculous. Imagine that, a player reaches max level and gets killed effortlessly by an old fogey in a cottage."

"Oi, don't call him that. What if he's offended and appears behind you?"

"...Was that a joke?"

"Yeah, it was."

"Whew."

They settled down. Cael drew out his notebook, and prepared to write some notes.

He found himself writing a short story of sorts. 20 minutes of writing passed peacefully, until the sound of footsteps once again loomed from near the cottage. This time, it was just one player, who was level 53. They were a male who belonged to another small Guild, named [GreyCats].

This time, however, the player was from the [Ranger] sub-class, and moved briskly. They seemed to be scanning the mobs nearby, probably looking for a mob needed to complete a Guild quest. As they stood in front of the cottage and looked in, Cael used [Mana Push] once more on the practice swords of the cottage. The old man re-appeared, and punced towards this new player sacrifice.

"Wait! Wait! I wasn't trying to tresspass!" said the player, as the old man stared indifferently while making a low-pitched, sighing sound. The nervous player's sword fell shivering to the ground.

The old man man cast [Meditate], another basic spell. Suddenly, the player started to vomit out a thick black sludge, and seemed to have difficulty breathing. They gained a status effect in garbled text, then collapsed first onto their knees, then face-first onto the ground. There was an empty look in their eyes, and Cael watched as they died with black sludge still flowing out of their veins. After death, the player's body shrivelled up into a small shape made of thin, folded skin, as if it had no organs into it.

Seeing another intruder dead, the old man sighed and disappeared.

"So, this guy and the girl named Britt might respawn?" whispered DicingDevil.

"Yeah. Britt seems like a conniving sort. I doubt those guys will ever get that strong, but if Britt gets with another strong player then we might still hear about her. She'll have gone bonkers."

"Conniving? Sounds like your type, maybe you'd enjoy her company," teased DicingDevil.

"Well, I enjoyed seeing her die, the rest of her company I could do without."

"You enjoy seeing many people die. But then, I'm in a Guild named DeathGang, so not one to talk."

"Yes. Well, it has its perks: some people pay to enjoy courtesans, but we just enjoyed one for free."

DicingDevil stifled a laugh, before speaking softly.

"She was encouraging Areté to patrol for us, so she probably hates us. But she'll be traumatised now. Soon the army of big donors currently opposing us will turn into a gang of drunkards and eccentrics, the longer they're trapped down here. Could be fun."

"It sounds good, if we see it through. But I have reservations about it."

"What about it?"

"There's something about eccentricity and big spenders that tends, well, to disturb the peace," replied Cael, "after all, no matter how well or intelligently people play the game, there can still be an idiotic, bad whale who is ahead of them. The flow of gameplay, the path of progression, the sequence of tactics, is easily rendered meaningless. It would be a pain to establish Pax Romana for a week, only for some idiot to then walk by and overthrow it while half-awake. So it makes things unpredictable for gankers and Guilds like yours, even if you guys grow into an established power. All of these whales becoming eccentric, going on these big crusades against 'evil,' getting drunk, it feels like someday it will become a hassle."

DicingDevil paused, then replied, "Yes. But most players are just taking it easy and trying to see through a few days, hoping they'll get to leave soon. So we'll probably have a large headstart on them."

"Yes. Most of the players still willing to adventure out are donors, because they are better geared and figure that their donation would have been wasted if they just stayed in town. They feel like they should stay ahead of the rest. Sunk cost stuff. So this is a great time for looting other players, that's where the rewards are."

"True. So if they fixed it, you'd stop ganking as much? I'd be surprised."

"Maybe for a short time," laughed Cael, "I need to catch up on some PvE stuff, and explore a bit. But ganking isn't a question of what I need, it's a question of giving other people what they deserve. It's a charitable donation."

"Yeah, I think basic dungeons and PvE areas will be overcrowded once people can journey more easily. By the way, have you been doing any of the dungeons nearby?"

"No, actually."

"You're still high-level, in spite of that. But if the war goes well, remind our Guild to take you to a dungeon just North-West of our territory."

"Sure, sure. Is it near the Hunting tradeskill place?"

"Do you want to visit that? A couple of us are planning to learn Hunting, it would help with living in the wild."

"I'm up for it, thanks."

"No problem. Anyway, we're nearly due to return to Kruxol. We should circle around to the North, so that we avoid the patrols."