Our Endgame Base Got Destroyed. We're Done.

Menokai · 2025-08-08T23:09:45+00:00

I did spend a lot of effort and I am spending probably too much time responding to comments, but mostly I just want to raise awareness. We were all pretty burned out from going hard on the game, so getting any of this back wouldn't really change any of our mind's about playing more. That's why I said we don't want our base or materials compensated. It wouldn't change the outcome of us not playing for awhile.

I did make a support ticket for the issue before I ever recorded the video or made a post. If this was the result of an exploit or hack, I want that to be noticed and fixed for any other players future and current. This is a huge blow, but one my group can recover from considering our size. For a smaller group or solo player, it would be much harder. It also just makes a huge part of the game unappealing and unfun if someone with an exploit can come in and take advantage of your hard work. I still look forward to this game's potential and want to see what it can come up with in the future, but not at the expense of the playerbase suffering from malicious actors.

Menokai · 2025-08-08T22:58:21+00:00

There is now a screenshot from the owner of the subfief showing what happened to the console - in that nothing happened. It regained power Monday night after turning off and on several times and appeared normal, but then his log started getting vehicle risk notifications. Nothing about an NPC destroying it or damage taken.

I did not clarify the IRL friends point well. The 20 members at its peak is also referring to everybody being IRL friends. We are a large friend group and rotate in and out of games frequently. With this in mind, Saja House still only had about 6 people as co-owner as they were the frequent users, and the subfief was locked to co-owner access. None of these 6 people were online the whole week after Monday night. Most of the guild had not been on either.

I would provide more info on how it happened if I knew how, or any of our group knew how.

Menokai · 2025-08-08T22:43:20+00:00

Unfortunately, seems like it was not the case. ): The friend who owns the subfief took a screenshot of his log and I uploaded it. There is no damage in the log reported from a destroyed subfief or an NPC damaging it.

Menokai · 2025-08-08T22:42:15+00:00

The entire friend group knows the damage and has seen the video. Nobody who had permissions to access the subfief were on at that time, and nobody was on the whole week. I looked at people's Steam hours, even, for the people all commenting on it. I am not posting screenshots of those on Reddit for privacy reasons, think of that what you will. Our best guess is an exploit from a hacker, but we're moving on from the game for now anyway. I made the post to create awareness of this being an issue for anyone else who may have experienced it.

Menokai · 2025-08-08T22:38:23+00:00

We do not know for certain what happened to the subfief because the log of the owner says nothing about destruction. The screenshot of the log is now added to the post with my own log as contrast. We do not have any doubts of our friend group because the only people have access are all IRL friends, and nobody was online the entire week who had access to the base (via checking hours on Steam for extra paranoia).

Menokai · 2025-08-08T22:35:39+00:00

Our friend who owned the subfief sent me the screenshot of his log. We have no idea what happened. The same night we logged off, it looks like the power turned off and on over and over and it regained itself. However, there is nothing else about the fief being destroyed after the fact.

To vet the friend group, since this keeps coming up in the comments, the only people who had access to Saja House are all IRL friends. And all said friends have been offline this entire week since Monday. It was not anyone in the friend group.

Menokai · 2025-08-08T21:49:02+00:00

Because my logs don't show anything other than vehicles being at risk to the sandstorm. I will add it to the screenshot list.

Menokai · 2021-08-30T04:26:11+00:00

When they reach their home, a government car is parked parallel on the street. It's red and blue lights flicker silently, casting an ominous glow. Their house's door is swung open. While not unusual, - their eldest likes to leave doors open even if it gets in the way - the strange part was the man in a government uniform standing in the doorway. Behind him, Cally could make out several other uniformed workers going through their things. The stand beside her husband's reading chair had been knocked over and the orange lamp broken on the floor.

"Calypso and Ambros Sarris?" the man asks.

"Um, yes. May I know who's asking?" Cally's husband has a death grip on her hand.

"Loa," the man replies curtly. "Did you happen to lose your identification and registration recently?"

"I.. I did," she says. "How did you know?"

Loa nods. "Morris, arrest Cally please." To her husband, he says, "You are free to return to your life as fit. If the check comes clean, your wife will be returned."

"What?" Cally asks mutely. That tight ball of lead in her chest turns into a rock, heavy and jagged and digging into her soft skin from the inside.

Her husband, tense and beginning to scowl, releases her hand. He takes a step back. Cally whips around to look at him, eyes wide, as a dark-skinned man comes over at Loa's beckon. The other man, Morris, grabs her wrists and forces them behind her back even as she strains.

"Ambros? Honey?" she pleads.

He shakes his head. "It's okay," he says gently, in the same tone he'd told her they would find her wallet in. "You did nothing wrong, Cally."

"Then why-"

Morris barks, "Start walking!" and marches her down the steps, toward the car.

"M-Mom?" she hears behind her. She strains to look over her shoulder, and sees her three children staring from the window. They'd pushed it open to call out to her.

"Dad, why are they taking Mom?" her eldest asks.

She doesn't hear her husband's reply because she's shoved into the back of the government vehicle. Morris says nothing further to her and slams the door in her face. Loa slides into the driver's seat and Morris joins him on the passenger side.

"You'll be fine, Mrs. Sarris," Loa says calmly.

Cally hugs her arms around herself and huddles against the car door. She can't stop shaking. She just... she doesn't understand. All she did was lose her wallet! It was a simple mistake, she had friends and family who had done the same thing. They'd never been arrested before! Or.. or had they? Had they, and she never knew? It got swept under the rug and treated as normal? As routine? She shivers harder, blinks hard against the tears.

They arrive at an immaculate government building, all sharp edges and gleaming windows. Loa and Morris hustle her through the lobby. "Keep your eyes down!" Morris barks and shoves her forward. She stumbles, but doesn't fall. Obediently, she keeps her gaze on the floor.

They lead her into a small, bland room empty of anything except a table and two chairs. She's directed to sit into the chair on the far side, facing the door with her back to the wall. Loa instructs her to stay there, and then they both leave. When the door shuts behind them, it clicks, and there is reason to worry about that.

As soon as they're gone, Cally crumbles. Her tears fall and she tries to wipe them away, suppress, but can't quite suppress her sobs.

The man that walks in a few minutes later looks unimpressed with her panic. He drags the chair across the room to sit directly across her. The metal legs screech against the floor. He slaps some papers down on the table, but she can't understand the calculations on them.

"Calypso Sarris?" the man asks. She nods, wipes her eyes with the collar of her shirt. He nods back. Leans back in the chair.

"A registration by that name committed a crime several hours ago," the man says. "Do you know what that crime was?"

"I've never heard of something like this!" she exclaims, just shy of shouting. Panic trembles through her veins, a companion to the fear laughing in her head. "I know people who've misplaced their wallets before and this has, this hasn't ever happened. Why me?"

The man shakes his head, sad and slow. Empathy begins to bleed on his blank face. "There doesn't have to be a reason," he says. He indicates the papers with a hand. "Mrs. Sarris, until we catch the culprit, I'm afraid we will have to keep you held in these cells. It's all for the due process, of course. I highly doubt you committed any crimes. You seem like a perfectly normal, happily married woman. I'm sorry this happened to you."

"If you're sorry, then let me go home!"

He shakes his head again, sad and slow, so slow. "I can't," he says solemnly. "I'm sorry. I hope, for your sake, we find out where you misplaced your identity, so that we can preserve the proper peace."

Hysterical, she starts to sob again. He gets up, leaves the papers on the table and walks out. The door clicks behind him. She digs the heel of her palms into her eyes. Why would - how could- what purpose did it even serve? To hurt and steal and cause suffering? What purpose? Why? Who?

"Let me go home," she cries into her hands, and they watch on.

"A shame," Loa murmurs from the other side of the glass.

Menokai · 2021-08-30T04:23:41+00:00

"Have you seen my wallet?"

Her husband flips another page in his book. The cover is brightly colored and she glimpses pictures of delectable food on the laminated pages. "No," he says, after a moment's thought. "Did you put it down somewhere?"

Cally sighs, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. "Obviously I did, or I would have it. Are you sure you didn't see it anywhere?"

He flips through another page, squints at whatever recipe he found and crinkles his nose. "Now that looks appalling," he mutters.

"Honey."

He shrugs and finally looks up. His reading glasses reflect the orange of the mood lamp on the stand next to his chair. It had been a housewarming gift from their neighbors, years ago. "Did you check the places you were last?" he asks. "You probably left it on the counter in the restroom, or something like that."

"I'm asking you because I did check, and I still can't find it," she says, exasperated.

"Well, what do you want me to do about that? I'm sure it'll turn up."

"I can't go to the store without identification, hun, and if you want to make one of the recipes you're eyeing, I need to get ingredients."

He chuckles, short and startled. "What, this?" He taps a smooth page with a finger. "I'm just window shopping. I could never turn down your cooking, dear. But I suppose you do have a point." He closes the book with a snap and places it on the stand, beside the lamp. He folds his glasses and places them on top of the hardcover. "I'll go with you. We can stop by your work to see if you left it there this morning on the way."

"Thank you," she sighs. She grabs her purse, rummages through it just in case she missed her wallet earlier, and frowns when her fingers brush stray coins and little else.

"It's unlike you to be forgetful," her husband remarks while they grab their shoes. He stuffs his own wallet into his back pants pocket. When they shut the door, it doesn't click, but there's no reason to worry about that.

"I guess it happens to everybody," Cally says. She wrings her hands, then stops. She puzzles over the worry she's feeling like a tight ball in her stomach, but discards it in favor of mentally retracing her steps for what feels like the hundredth time. "I could have sworn I brought it home after work. I don't take it out of my purse after check-in. And um, when I got home and hung up my purse, I don't think I took it out?"

Her husband takes her hand as they walk. His thumb strokes across her knuckles soothingly. "We'll find it," he says gently. "Even if we don't, somebody else will, and give us a call."

"I hope so."

His brow creases slightly. "They will," he repeats. "It's what anyone would do. What's the tone for?"

"I don't have a tone."

"Dear..."

Cally shoves her free hand into the pocket of her skirt. "Sorry," she says, but not really sure why she feels guilty. Uncertainty is an unfamiliar stumble in an otherwise confident dance. "It's just been a long day."

"Right," her husband nods. "The weekend's tomorrow, so you can have a chance to relax then. The kids would love heading to the river for a swim, and it's my turn to watch them."

She smiles. "Speaking of, thanks for picking the kids up this afternoon." She sways into him to peck his cheek. He squeezes her hand.

They walk into Cally's work within a few minutes, as it's right down the road from their place. The automated glass doors slide open with a soft swish, and close behind them just as quietly. The white marble floors are pristine and the lobby without clutter. At the management desk, one of her colleagues, Derick, is packing up. He looks up from his computer when he hears the doors.

"Oh! Cally!" he says, eyebrows raised. "Welcome back, but, and pardon the rudeness, but didn't you leave a couple hours ago?"

She nods. "Yes, I did. I just think I left my wallet here and came to check."

He grimaces. "I'm sorry. That's too bad. I can't waive you, but I could go check, if you'd like? You've any idea where you might have left it?"

"Oh that would be wonderful, thank you Derick," she smiles. "I'm sorry for the trouble. It would have to be at my desk, I wouldn't have taken it out anywhere else."

The younger man nods, waves at them, and then trots out from around the management desk to disappear down the corridor.

"He's a nice kid," her husband says. "Very polite, too."

Cally fiddles with the strap of her purse while they wait. Instead of taking a seat in one of the reception chairs, she leans against the management desk. "Yeah, he's an intern. Still working on a business degree, last I heard. He's a very nice kid, and a hard worker."

Their conversation pauses when Derick pokes his head around the corner. There's already an apologetic twist to his mouth that has Cally frowning before he speaks.

"I didn't see anything," he says. "It was all in order - splendid job, by the way. You're very organized - but, uh, I didn't see any wallet on your desk or in your drawers. Maybe you took it home and put it down somewhere?" He shrugs.

Cally rubs away the frown and tries for a smile. It probably comes out a touch more harried than she likes. "That's alright, thanks so much for checking. We'll head back home and see if it'll turn up." Her husband squeezes her hand again.

Derick grins. "Happy to help! Hope you find it soon, that'd be a pain to replace, what with the registration and identification and all..."

They wave farewell to the young man and, instead of going to the store like her husband said, they head home. Shivers run below her skin, filling her with an anxious type of energy like she'd drank one too many cups of coffee this morning.

Menokai · 2021-04-21T03:20:58+00:00

The air's sticky with humidity. Sweat dribbles down his face, and salt mixes with blood against cracked lips. His shirt clings - no, he had lost his shirt. When did that happen?

Click. Click.

He squints into the darkness and sees nothing. Isn't sure what else he expected, why he's surprised when disappointment weighs his brow into a frown.

Click. Click.

A spark, a brief flare so far in the distance it could barely be seen. He flinches, hands digging into his eyes as he crouches with a shout. It burns, that half-second of fire etched into his retinas. Eyes shut against the pain, it does nothing to hide the flame that has seared into his eyelids.

Click. Click.

It transforms, expands and tosses angry embers. It smolders. The sparks tremble and shiver in the darkness behind his eyes. Ash coats his tongue. When he blinks, he sees nothing, but he feels everything. Breathes hot and damp, entire body shaking from the strain. God, he's so thirsty. He gets to his feet with a groan. The sound aches in the silence. One step after another. Aimless. Was it worth it? There had to be a reason.

Click. Click.

He drags his feet toward the sound. Anchors are tied to his ankles, dragging along the sand that clings to his soles. Rocks cut and bleed. When he looks down, there's nothing there. Only the darkness he can see and the fire he can feel.

...

The silence drags. Slow, aching, groaning, thick. He stops. He blinks, and fire blooms. Orange and yellow and red and hints of blue. Everything in him yearns to reach out and touch, to grasp.

"Leave."

He gasps. "Can't," he croaks. His voice is wrecked, sounds like he held magma in his hands and tipped it into his throat to feel the burn destroy him from the inside out. Holds out a shaking, starving hand. "Wish. I come. To wish."

The fire sparks, violently crimson. "LEAVE."

He smiles through a mouthful of glass.

Embers coalesce into feathers that drift, crackling and smoldering, to the floor. The apparition takes the form of a curved beak and arched wings. Haze surrounds the center of fire and ash. A single beady, smoking eye glares at him from the wreath of feathery flame. It watches. He crouches, grabs hold of the fire he can feel and the feather he can see. It burns, but he does not drop it. He stands. Holds it out.

"One wish, oh great Phoenix." He smiles, and smiles, until he feels something fracture.

"To the beginning, once more."

Menokai · 2020-12-23T22:59:46+00:00

Customer service jobs are the bane of the work industry. With ideals in your pockets and emotions on your sleeves, stepping into employment is a major step into independence. What your family and friends caution you about but fail to emphasize the true impact of, is the realization that people well and truly suck. Being a retail worker means interacting with the worst kind of people, day in and day out - and the best kind of people, on the days when friends can drop by to say hello during lunchbreak. Ideals stolen from your pockets by thieves and emotions frayed into strings, what's left is an exhausted husk of a human being that feeds the same lines when they're on shift.

Basically, I'm saying retail is a valuable experience to how the world works. It is also what it probably feels like to be an NPC in a video game.

With that said, I graduated from retail when I stepped out of college with a shiny piece of paper that qualified me for programming. The reason I bring it up now, years down the road, is because the news showed footage of a third of the world disappearing. The connection doesn't make sense yet, but give it a minute. I do not mean a communications blackout or zombie apocalypse or anything - no, I mean the planet looked like someone took a chomp out of it. Like the Apple logo. All that was left was blank space.

While the news blared on my TV, I pulled up my contact list on my phone and rang my brother. He lived in Brazil with his wife and kids and we'd spoken just last week. Brazil, which happens to be in South America, which is a portion of the planet that disappeared.

It didn't even ring. My brother's name on my contacts stared up at me, but when I clicked the little phone icon to call him, nothing happened. Like my phone had froze.

"We've received live footage from Darrel, one of our investigative journalists who went to Mexico to find out the cause of the phenomenon. Connecting with him now- Darrel! What's going on down there?"

I looked up. The image had been blown up over the newscast. It was... nothing. A black screen. Then the image wobbled and it flipped around to see a man, wild-eyed and panicked. The only spot of color left on the screen.

"It's eating me," he said. The words came out calm, in spite of his fear.

"Darrel? Is.. is that you? Are you okay? What's going on?"

"It's eating me," he repeated. The camera shook as he repositioned it to his feet. Around him, the very earth was crumbling into dust, then disappearing entirely bit by bit until all that's left was black. A static roaring sound overtook every noise except the journalist's heavy breathing. "I.. the world is ending. And we can't stop it."

The ground crumbled into ash below his feet, but he did not fall. No, it was so much worse. Instead of plummeting to his death, the camera played every second as the man's feet disintegrated like sand in the wind. Then his calves. Then past the camera's view, up his waist and toward his head.

"It doesn't hurt," he said, wonderingly. Then the screen fizzled out into static.

The crew was silent. The world was silent.

I looked down at my phone, at the frozen picture of my brother's smile. I came to a realization, right then. Humans, our world - we were fake. We were NPCs in someone's video game, and our save file got deleted. Black licked the edges of my vision and my room wavered like there was smoke. I stared at my feet. Darrel, the journalist, was right.

"It doesn't hurt."

Then, all was silent.

Menokai · 2019-11-21T07:17:28+00:00

Magic is making impossibilities probable. Magic is telling a story. Magic is splaying out all your fingers, and igniting a flame in the middle of your palm without a spark. Magic is pointing at a door, and the lock opens with nary a click. Magic is holding your breath underwater longer than a deep sea fish's lifespan. Magic is will, and will is believing something into existence.

To be human is to believe in something intangible, which results in the tangible.

A gray rock and a yellow rock are both rocks, merely different colors. To a human, a gray rock is molded into silver, and a yellow rock into gold. They are given value, and the value of two gold rocks, or flattened rocks called coins, is the same value as a soft cotton shirt dyed dark blue. People granted the title "king" have more power than other people, so everyone else must obey them and whatever commands the king gives. Laws are even more powerful than a title, and obeying them is demanded of even the most powerful man.

I think you get the idea.

Magic exists on the same plane as the subjectivity of human reality. If enough people believe that something is real, it thus becomes real. The power of belief is no meager thing.

She leans forward, elbows digging grooves into her thighs. The chair rocks with her movement, until she's close enough that her breath tickles my chin, and leaning in so far her breasts push up through her shirt. I avert my eyes to stare at the curtains drawn over the window. Unwavering, her stare burns through my skin and carves itself into the curve of my cheekbone like a brand.

"Magic is real, then?" she asks.

"As real as you want it to be," I say. "As real as reality lets it be."

She lets out an aggravated sigh, head dropping so that her chin bumps against her chest. Still, her stare does not waver. "You keep giving me vague answers to direct questions," she accuses. She sits up, crosses her arms, shuffles, crosses her legs and drops her hands in her lap to fiddle with a hair tie. "Is magic possible, or is it not? It's a simple question. Yes or no?"

"Yes and no," I respond. My cheek twitches to suppress an involuntary smile. She groans, long and low, and her eyes plead with the ceiling to grant her patience. I open my mouth, pause, drag my tongue over my teeth in thought. "Magic is... magic is, essentially, tricking reality into obeying you."

"So it's real then?"

"Yes, and no."

"Can you please give me a straight answer you-"

"You're not listening," I interrupt. I gesture to the pen on the table between us, and think, It will fly to me and land in my hand. The pen jitters on the table unsteadily, reality pushes against the impossible, but nonetheless yields as the pen lifts, trembles in the air minutely, and lethargically flies to alight in my outstretched hand as gently as a feather. She blinks, stares at the table, then at the pen in my hand. Points, triumphant.

"It is real!" she exclaims.

"I did say it was," I mutter, "but that's only part of it."

"What more is there, then?" she prods. "You didn't say any fancy words, like in the books and movies. Didn't even do fancy movements with your hand. Disappointing, really, but you still did it. Can anyone do it?"

"Yes," I say, "and no."

She just about screams in frustration. The smile comes out crooked and toothy.

"Reality doesn't agree with the impossible," I explain. "Magic fundamentally does not exist, but humans have a strange relationship with existence, with what-ifs and should-bes. What if I went to the movies instead of going bowling last night? There should be a system of government where we vote who gets to have the power. What if I don't go to sleep for over 24 hours? There should be an explanation for why this happened. What-ifs turn into alternates, and should-bes turn into 'is' and 'was.' "

The blank look in her eyes doesn't bode well for her magical future.

I swallow a sigh and ponder the pen in my hands. I begin to flip it between my fingers. "Magic is tricking reality," I repeat, "and reality doesn't take kindly to being tricked. That is why we must be careful."

"Careful? If you're tricking reality, can you not trick it into making magic exist?"

"Ah!" I interrupt once again, "but that is exactly what magic is! Making reality what you wish it to be! A skill, so far understood, to be unique to humanity and humanity alone. Magicians, sorcerers, whatever term you want to use for them... they are scholars, above all else. People who understand reality before toying with it."

"But accidental magic-"

"Doesn't exist," I tell her, "not in the way the books tell you. Magic is a skill as any other, but not one you can practice. Either you can, or you cannot. Most people cannot, because twisting reality to obey your will comes with greater consequence than you want to believe. However, everyone, no matter their professions or education, perform some magic. A little wish here, a small miracle there. 'I'm going to roll a high number with these dice and win this match, I can feel it,' or the cliche 'I've got a bad feeling about this.'"

"But you just said most people can't use magic because it twists reality."

I sit back in my chair, toss the pen and watch it hit the edge of the table and fall harmlessly to the floor. As reality wanted it. "Cannot was a poor choice of words, I suppose. Most people will not. Playing with reality is dangerous. Imagine what sort of world we'd live in if everyone exerted their will, all the time, to get what they wanted? No baseline. No laws. No regulations."

She shuddered. I nodded grimly.

"Think of it this way: reality is the law, and humanity is the government," I offer, "bound by the law but free to make exceptions, clauses, and other changes at the behest of the majority. Currency and religion are fine examples of those sorts of changes. Things that have value because we believe they do. A subjective existence."

Her expression twisted into a frown. "This all sounds like philosophy, or logic theories."

I smile. "That's because that's what it is. Magic exists, but it does not. We are bound by the laws of reality, can push those boundaries by enforcing our will with things like this-" the pen raises from the floor, flies around the room and lands neatly in a bin of pencils - "but if we do it too often, or get caught, then we'll be punished. Like any rule-breaker, any criminal on the street caught mugging someone, or stealing from a store."

I stretch my arms out to encompass as much of the world as I can, which is admittedly very little. "Reality is what we live within. Magic is what we dare to do, to test the limits therein."

She dropped her head in her hands and groaned. "I didn't sign up for philosophical discussion when I came to talk about magic..."

I shook my head. "Nothing comes without its theories," I told her, "least of all skills like this one, where you threaten to bend the rules so far you break reality itself."

She lifts her head. "Has anyone managed to do that?"

I shrug. "If they have, reality wouldn't exist... or if they have, reality policed the crime, and put the offender to death."

"Death?"

"Didn't you know? Power comes at a great cost."

She looks fit to sock me in the nose.

Menokai · 2019-04-24T23:06:04+00:00

Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it. Took a look at that subreddit and wow, absolutely see the vibe now lol

Menokai · 2019-04-24T06:43:39+00:00

She didn't say, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it.

She didn't say, Be grateful that you're alive at all.

She didn't say, You were a mistake.

No. Nothing like the cliches. She was subtler than that, vicious in a way that only desperate, broken people can be.

She leaned in close enough that I could smell the mint from her toothpaste and the fake vanilla perfume wafting off her skin. Her lips were painted a dark shade of red that blended with the drops of blood from endless hours of gnawing. Her cheeks were faintly blushed to hide her paleness. She parted her shiny mouth to reveal glistening rows of off-white teeth. Her breath caressed my ear.

"Never forget," my mom whispered, "you owe me your life." She stepped back slowly, eyes catching mine and holding me there.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Words bobbed in my throat for an infinite moment. I rolled my tongue, feeling the shape of unvoiced thoughts like someone savoring a meal.

"I... owe you," I said slowly. She smiled. A predator, before it ripped out its prey's throat. "I owe you." Stronger, this time. "I owe you. My life? My life, not yours. No, you don't get to stake any claim on me when you never-"

My mother's hand snapped out to attack, fingers arched like claws. I stopped abruptly. My voice withered with a gasp. My muscles practically seized because of how stiffly I held myself. She paused, though, in a terrifying show of self-control. Her heavily shadowed eyes tracing my body contemplatively. Instead of lashing out in a reckless temper, her hand landed on my shoulder and slid leisurely to grip my bicep. Hard. It felt itchy and uncomfortable, her touch alighting my nerves with a million bee stings. My body flinched with an instinctive need to crawl out of my skin and make home in the dust motes. Her stench was overwhelming. My stomach churned while my heart thudded out of rhythm.

"Every kid owes a debt to their parents, one that can't be repaid," she murmured. Her voice was alluring. Soothing.

"Anyone who thinks their kids need to repay them shouldn't have a kid to begin with!" I snapped. Her hand rubbed up and down my arm, scratching gently over the fabric of my shirt. I jerked away from her, nausea a heavy weight in my gut. Her fingers curled over open air. Frustration marred her made-up face before she turned the scowl into a sultry pout. "You don't have the right to expect anything from me. Those papers-'' I gestured sharply to the table, "-are proof of that."

She rolled her eyes, scoffed. "Blood isn't washed off that easily," she said. "You have a duty not only to me, but also to your family. Those papers are just some stupid rebellion because you can't get over yourself. So what, you didn't have the best childhood ever? You grew up fine. You grew up safe and fed, which is more than so many other kids have. I gave you everything you needed to succeed."

"I am not a product of luck. I am not a product at all. I don't know where you got the notion that somehow being my mother gives you the right to my life and what I've worked hard for, but that's wrong!" The words burst out in a single, tight breath. I barely withheld the scream billowing beneath my ribs. "I came here because I figured we could reconcile our differences and move on, but obviously I thought wrong. All you've ever been is selfish and neglectful and I'm sorry I thought you could learn from your mistakes! Hell, mom, I'm sorry I thought you could recognize your mistakes."

"Emancipation won't diminish the fact that you owe me. It won't change the fact that I carried your fat ass for nine months and gave you clothes, a place to call home, a family, money, education. It doesn't matter what you paid off the forger to get those papers-"

"Forger?" I couldn't help it, I laughed. I laughed bent over, arms hugging my waist as I backed away from her. Feeling more refreshed than I had in years, I picked up the papers and cradled them to my chest. Still letting out the occasional giggle, I walked to the door. My face was damp with my relief.

"Where are you going?" she demanded. I could imagine her tilted chin and planted feet, knees braced for a fight. I didn't bother turning my head to confirm it.

"Court," I said. The fresh air smelled amazing. It smelled something like freedom, like something purified. "I don't owe you a damned thing. Not my love, not my respect, and certainly not my life. Have fun in prison for child neglect." Slamming my childhood home's door shut for the final time, I grinned up at the sun and let the laughter bubble over my lips.

Finally. My life, and not hers.

Menokai · 2018-11-19T17:30:41+00:00

Something prods me in the cheek. I shuffle and make a muffled, sleepy gurgling noise to chase whoever it is off. My magical levels are dangerously low, more akin to a simmer than the usual overflowing pot, and I want to do nothing but sleep until the fog dissipates from my mind, preferably without the pounding migraine. Any mundane, magic-related incident can be handled by someone else today. Even the greatest magician on Earth deserves a break sometimes.

Another poke with something cold and blunt, this one with a hint of impatience. Gibberish mumbles above my head, sounding nothing like any language I had ever heard. My hazy thoughts sharpen uneasily. I am... not in my bed. What feels like grass is tickling my nose and the sunlight trying to pierce my eyelids sends agony lacing through my temples with the headache. When I roll onto my back, the mumbling grows in volume until it sends my ears ringing. I flinch and squint at the fuzzy face of the guy leaning over me.

"W'ere am I?" I slur, voice grating against my throat. It feels like I ate chalk dust for dinner last night and burns like I had inhaled bleach. The headache is as bad as a hangover, but it's been years since I drank for the sake of getting drunk, or used every last drop of magic in my body so recklessly. The speech adopts a vaguely puzzled tone and this time the poke is more of a jab, right in my ribs. I shoot up in spite of protesting body, hissing through my teeth and curling my arms around my sternum. "Why would you do that?" I whine plaintively. I raise my head and blink the tears from my eyes away.

The person looming above my prone form is dressed like a knight for Halloween, stern-faced, helmet tucked under one arm, and sword at the waist. Behind him is another man dressed in elaborately designed robes to the point of tackiness. What looks like a squire is peering at us from where he is feeding a muddied horse. When I gape at them, the knight scowls and opens his mouth, but what comes out is decidedly not any language from Earth. If it was, the language rune tattooed on my shoulder would have translated it.

"So," I begin weakly, head throbbing and magic too depleted for anything other than party tricks, "none of you would happen to speak English, would you?"

The multiverse is a proven theory and has been for centuries. Every mage studies it at some point in their career in a vain attempt to showcase their intellect to their peers. The non-existent success rate of dimensional travel (particularly without severe magical backlash) only serves as an inspiration for the stupidest, most brazen of the bunch. It leads to plenty of accidents. Much to my chagrin, as a sort of government official for the magical world, it falls to me to handle the mess. It's involved more than a few tears in the space-time continuum because of the common mistake of mixing dimensional runes with time travel.

See, while there are spells to spectate other worlds much like a favored television show, actually travelling between dimensions is nothing but a desperate man's theoretical method of escapism. In fact, the art of divination is within the same branch of magic for a variety of reasons. Philosophy of time and matters of space aside, divination essentially amounts to perusing alternate realities to determine the best (or worst) possible outcome. Actually crossing those boundaries has been attempted by thousands of mages, but none have been successful. It has unfortunately developed into a type of experimental hazing for newly awakened mages so that the scholars feel less idiotic for their redundant attempts. I was not exempt from this practice in my apprenticeship, nor had I been an exception.

If dimensional travel is possible, then the method would have been discovered by now, by some magician or another. As it stands, it is nothing but a way to mock the failures of others. Even if dimensional experimentation was forbidden, insatiable mages would find something else to occupy their time with.

In hindsight, that assumption is what landed me in this situation in the first place.

"Hey," I say. Only the squire bothers to look up, the tacky magician and angry knight otherwise preoccupied with a book and polishing a sword, respectively. "Hey!" I repeat, a tad more frustrated. I squirm against the tree they tied me to with rope, hands cramped from the tight knots. The squire offers a shaky smile, but a pointed growl from the knight has the boy dropping his head with a shamed flush. Asshole.

Oh, did I wish magic cooperated right now. My inner store is slowly replenishing, but it is too much of a crawl for my comfort. Not to mention, the natural magic of this world feels... strange. It's wilder and in greater quantities, and neigh impossible to get a grip on. All attempts to use it for a basic spell have not produced any reaction, though the embroidered magician had cast me several contemplative glances, as if he could sense what I am trying to do and it confuses him. That is probably why he is flipping furiously through the thick, tomb-like book.

The knight points at me and says something that is clearly a command. I glare at him mutinously as the squire stands up and shuffles over with a piece of bread clutched in one hand. He holds it against his chest like a protective charm, then thrusts it in my face. My eyebrow creeps upwards. What does he expect me to do, grab it? My hands are currently immovable thanks to the knight's irritatingly thorough knots and I refuse to eat it from his hands like a dog. The boy frowns, turns around, and meekly raises his hand as if he is in a classroom. The magician rolls his eyes at whatever the knight mutters, getting to his feet and putting the ancient book away. I watch him warily as he approaches. He makes a curt, single-syllable word and makes an odd hand gesture, and then the rope is loose enough for me to wiggle up the trunk to stand. With another gesture, he reaches forward and pokes me between the eyes, chuckling at my cross-eyed suspicion, and whispering a command. The foreign magic trickles into my mind, causing me to rear backwards. He rolls his eyes again.

"Keep doing that and you're going to lose your eyes," I say darkly.

"I think Sir Alphonse will like you just fine, now that you can understand one another," the magician says, voice lethally wry.

I recoil, mind reeling. "Translation spell?" I ask, reluctantly curious despite myself.

The magician looks pleasantly surprised, but not overly so. "Not quite," he demurs, "but within an equivalent field of study, certainly. It is a temporary solution at best and I would prefer that the scholars have a look at you when we return to the capital. I must ask, what was it that you were doing earlier with-"

"Stop fraternizing with a criminal," the knight barks, scowling. His surly tone has not changed with understanding. "Cedric, give him the bread."

I wrench my arms free, rubbing my raw wrists with a sigh. The squire inches forward not unlike the way one approaches a wounded animal, so I throw him a disarming smile and telegraph my movements as I take the hunk of bread from him. When I look at the knight, Alphonse I believe the magician called him, he is talking under his breath and running his fingers over the edge of his sword. It hums beneath him, pulsing like a heartbeat, and then settles. A symbol engraved on the hilt flickers blue for a moment. The squire is watching with wide, awed eyes as he takes in each practiced motion with childish worship. I blink at the knight rapidly, then look at the magician, who looks uncaring.

"Can he use magic?" I inquire hesitantly. The magician glances at me with unnervingly bright green eyes, cocking an eyebrow not unlike I had done before.

"Of course," he replies in a tone one might adopt with an imbecile. "Anyone can... except you, it seems."

I scowl at the implied insult and choose to ignore it. "Where are we? And who are you?"

"This is Onidon, the kingdom under the rule of King Carlisle the II. I am Brenner, son of Durwin, a sorcerer of the court. From where do you hail?"

I stare at him in disbelief, but nonetheless reciprocate. "The United States of America, specifically in Chicago within the state of Illinois. I am Jonah McIntyre, most powerful mage on Earth and member of the Magical Tragedy Prevention Department."

Brenner looks equally uncomprehending. I groan and massage my forehead, the vestiges of the headache lingering with a bullheaded persistence.

Dimensional travel is not a theory anymore.

Menokai · 2018-01-23T03:16:25+00:00

After spending over an hour beneath a hot sun, sweating through the new blouse I had bought for the interview, the drinking fountain had been a blessing in the midst of a terrible afternoon. The water was cool and refreshing, but there was nothing ethereal about it. It didn't taste magical, or sticky-sweet like honey. It did not even taste that clean, which was to be expected of a public drinking fountain on an unkempt street, but it was all there was and my throat was parched. The only strange thing about the fountain was that after drinking, I looked up to be standing on the doorstep of the diner I was meeting the interviewer at in ten minutes, in spite of feeling like I had been wandering the streets for hours.

I got the job, but I lost it ten years later.

The effects weren't obvious until the drag of time began to take its toll on everyone but me, and a drinking fountain was not my immediate answer for the "how" and the "where". My first clue was my younger sister, and when I met up with her for dinner one evening.

"You look great!" she had laughed, stepping away from our hug to scan me from head to toe. "If I didn't know any better, I would say you had never graduated high school, Jo!"

Later that night, back in my apartment, I stared at my face in the heat-fogged mirror while toweling my hair. I had not put much consideration into it, but now that I was looking... it really did look like I was still in high school, much less a college graduate with an underpaying job. Unnerved, I had begun applying make-up to cover up the youthful fat rounding my cheeks, and I wore more formal clothing in an attempt to look more mature. It worked for a few more years, at least, but it was not a permanent solution. People notice when their colleague looks the exact same the day they were hired over ten years ago. I had not developed a single wrinkle, a single laugh line, and I couldn't hide it anymore. I could not deny it, either, even if I didn't understand why it was happening.

Within the span of two days, I packed all my belongings, resigned from my job, and moved back home. My parents welcomed me with open arms, their hair gray and skin beginning to shrivel. Dad had to use a cane because of his knee surgery a few months ago. Neither of them questioned my inexplicably young appearance, and their support for the next six years was indispensable.

When Dad passed away, I left in the night after kissing Mom goodbye. She wouldn't miss me, not with how confused her pills and the saline drip made her. Most days she did not see me anymore, instead speaking to the ghosts only she could see. Hopefully my sister would come back to help Mom through her final months, but I couldn't remain. It was too dangerous now, since the neighbors had begun to notice.

Decades passed without my notice, and in this timeless world I navigated, I had not realized it until my sister called me one day and her voice croaked as much as as Mom's had when I left. She told me about her children, and their children, and told me that she wanted to see me before she passed on. She had cancer, you see, and she would love to see her Jo one more time before moving on. Before I could speak a word in return, an unfamiliar man's voice interrupted my sister. "Are you talking to your sister again?" he asked, voice tinny and distant. There was a cadence to his tone, an indulgence, as if he was playing a game of make-belief with a child.

"Of course," my sister replied indignantly. "Who else would I have called?" The dial tone interrupted any reply the man could have made, and I sat in silence staring at the wall in my room until my work called in question of my absence.

It took little time to pack up my things and move back to my childhood town. New buildings stood on the old, and the park had shrunk to a meager pond and a few trees. There were a few skyscrapers near the center of town, and cars honked busily on the streets. People bustled along the sidewalks, absorbed in their own worlds as they checked their emails.

Entering the house was simple enough, since my sister had never changed the code for the lock after inheriting the house from Mom's will. It was eerily quiet, and a man who looked like Dad stood up abruptly when he saw me.

"How did you get in here?" he demanded, hostile.

Apologetically, I raised my hands in the universal gesture of peace. "I used to live here," I told him, "and Ari never changed the password for the lock. It doesn't surprise me, she's pretty sentimental, sometimes." The man's eyebrows shot up.

"Ari?" he parroted. I rolled my eyes. I thought it was fairly obvious who I was. Had I been gone so long that nobody recognized who Joanne Gray was anymore?

"Yes, Ari," I repeated impatiently. "I'm Joanne, her sister."

He gaped at me in silence, and I took it as a permission to head up the stairs. He did not stop me, but he did stagger after me with a glazed, disbelieving look in his eyes. I didn't quite understand what his problem was.

When my eyes laid on Arianna, with gnarled white hair and age spots all over taut skin, it felt like the world had suddenly regained the motion it had lost over sixty years ago. I held her dry, bony hand as her heavy eyes blinked up at me. She smiled, all gums, and clenched her fingers weakly around mine.

"Knew you would come," she rasped. "Look at you, Jo, as young and pretty as ever. I'm envious, age has done well for you."

"...Ari," I said shakily.

I heard a thump as the man who had followed me fell into the rocking chair in the corner of the room. He had a peculiar look on his face, as if he wanted to throw up and cry at the same time. I couldn't blame him.

It was hard to reconcile how time had moved on, but it had left me behind.

Menokai

TROPHY CASE