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Warren turned to the maw. He didn’t raise his light; instead, he simply stared into the blackness. There was no sound, not even the whisper of his breathing.

There had to be something beyond, but Warren felt apprehension begin to seep into him. He had come all this way. His heart hammered, harder, in his chest.

There had to have been a reason.

:

He continued to stare into the darkness ahead of him. There was nothing there.

He fought the urge to look back the way he had come. He had lost his map. Retracing his steps, finding his way back…It would take too long. He was lost.

:

Warren advanced toward the maw and stopped at the edge. Ichor pooled around his feet, rising from the cracks in tandem with the pounding in his chest.

Don’t, Warren begged.

I don’t have to do this. I can go back. Back to my room.

I can piece it all together again.

:

Warren’s hand trembled.

He felt a rush of warmth.

Then, almost against his will, his body fell into darkness.

Chris Avellone is the creative director of Obsidian Entertainment. He started his career at Interplay’s Black Isle Studios division, and he’s worked on a whole menagerie of RPGs throughout his career, including
Planescape: Torment
,
Fallout 2
, the Icewind Dale series,
Dark Alliance
,
Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2:
Mask of the Betrayer
,
Alpha Protocol
,
Fallout: New Vegas
,
FNV DLC: Dead Money
,
Old World Blues
, and
Lonesome Road
. He just finished working on inXile’s
Wasteland 2
, the
Legend of Grimrock
movie treatment, and the
FTL: Advanced Edition
, and is currently doing joint work on Obsidian’s Kickstarter RPG,
Pillars of Eternity
, and inXile’s
Torment: Tides of Numenera
. His story was inspired by the fine Infocom game
The Lurking Horror
, one of the first games to ever frighten him.

Meg hadn’t heard from Devon in four months, and she realized that she missed him. So on a whim she tossed her sword and scabbard into the backseat of her car and drove over to campus to visit him.

She’d always thought that she and Devon would be one of those couples who really did stay friends afterward. They’d been close for so long, and things hadn’t ended that badly. Actually, the whole incident seemed pretty silly to her now. Still, she’d been telling herself that the split had been for the best—with her working full-time and him still an undergrad. It was like they were in two different worlds. She’d been busy with work, and he’d always been careless about answering email, and now somehow four months had passed without a word.

She parked in the shadow of his dorm, then grabbed her sword and strapped it to her jeans. She approached his building. A spider, dog-sized, iridescent, rappelled toward her, its thorned limbs plucking the air. She dropped a hand to the hilt of her sword. The spider wisely withdrew, back to its webbed lair amid the eaves.

She had no key card, so she waited for someone to open the door. She checked her reflection. Eyes large, hips slender, ears a bit tapered at the tips. She looked fine. (Though she’d never be a match for the imaginary elf-maid Leena.)

Finally someone exited, an unfamiliar brown-haired girl. Meg caught the door and passed into the lobby. She climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to Devon’s door. She knocked.

His roommate, Brant, answered, looking half-asleep or maybe stoned. “Hey, Meg,” Brant mumbled—casually, as if he’d just seen her yesterday. “How’s the real world?”

“Like college,” she said, “but with less art history. Is Devon here?”

“Devon?” Brant seemed confused. “Oh. You don’t know.” He hesitated. “He dropped out.”

“What?” She was startled.

“Just packed up and left. Weeks ago. He said it didn’t matter anymore. He was playing that game all the time.” Brant didn’t need to say
which
game. Least of all to her. “He said he found something huge. In the game. Then he went away.”

“Went away where? Is he all right?”

Brant shrugged. “I don’t know, Meg. He didn’t tell me. You could email him, I guess. Or try to find him online. He’s always playing that game.” Brant shook his head. “And I mean
always
.”

Meg strode to her car. She chucked her sword in back, slid into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door.

Devon was the smartest guy she’d ever met, and the stupidest. How could he drop out with just one year left? Sadly, she wasn’t all that surprised.

She’d met him at an off-campus party her junior year. They’d ended up on the same couch. Before long he was on his third beer and telling her, “I didn’t even want to go to college. My parents insisted. I had a whole other plan.”

She said, “Which was?”

“To be a prince.” He gave a grandiose shrug. “I think I’d make a pretty good prince.” He noted her skeptical expression, and added, “But not prince of like, England. I’m not greedy. Prince of Monaco would be fine. Wait, is that even a country?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good,” he declared, thumping his beer on the end table. “Prince of Monaco. Or if that’s taken…”

“Liechtenstein,” she suggested.

“Liechtenstein, great!” he agreed, pointing. “Or Trinadad and Tobago.”

She shook her head. “It’s not a monarchy. No princes.”

“No princes?” He feigned outrage. “Well, screw
them
then. Liechtenstein it is.”

After that she noticed him everywhere. He seldom went to class or did coursework, so he was always out somewhere—joking with friends in the dining hall, pacing around the pond, or sitting under a tree in the central quad, doodling. His carefree independence was oddly endearing, especially to her, who was always so conscientious, though later his indifference to school worried her. She’d ask, “What’ll you do after you graduate?”

He’d just shrug and say, “Grades don’t matter. Just that you have the degree.”

And now he’d dropped out.

Angry, she started her car. She drove back to her apartment.

She emailed him repeatedly, but got no response. Mutual friends hadn’t heard from him. His mom thought he was still in school. Meg got really worried. Finally, she resorted to something she’d promised herself she’d never do—she drove over to the mall to buy the game.

It was called
Realms of Eldritch
, a groundbreaking multiplayer online game full of quests and wizards and monsters. Some of the game was based on real life: People carried magic swords, and many of the enemies were real, such as wolves or goblins or giant spiders. And like in real life, there was a gnome who sometimes appeared to give you quests or hints or items. But most of it was pure fantasy: dragons and unicorns and walking trees and demon lords.

And elves. In the game store, Meg eyed the box art. Leena, the golden-haired and impossibly buxom elf-maid, grinned teasingly.

Meg had a complicated relationship with Leena (especially considering that Leena wasn’t real). The year before, Meg had been riffling through Devon’s notebook and had come across a dozen sketches of Leena. The proportions were off, but each sketch came closer and closer to being a perfect representation. Meg had begun teasing Devon that he was in love with Leena. Meg had also once, foolishly, dressed up as Leena in bed, for Devon’s twenty-first birthday. It was just a campy gag, but he’d seemed way too into it. He’d even called her “Leena.” She’d never worn the costume again, and he’d never brought it up. He’d been pretty drunk that night, and she’d wondered if he even remembered her looking like someone else.

She bought the game (planning to return it the next day) and started home. In the rearview mirror she saw a flock of giant bats tailing her. She tensed, ready to slam on the brakes and reach for her sword, but finally the bats veered off and vanished into the west.

Back at her apartment, she opened the game box and dumped its contents out on her coffee table. Half a dozen CDs, a thick manual, some flyers, a questionnaire. It seemed so innocuous. Hard to believe that this little box could destroy a relationship. She and Devon had been so happy together for almost a year before he got caught up in this game.

She installed it. As progress bars chugged, she thumbed through the manual, which described the rules in mind-numbing detail—races, classes, attributes, combat, inventory, spells. She’d never understood how someone as smart and talented as Devon could waste so much time on this stuff.

Maybe she could have understood if the game at least featured some brilliant story, but Devon spent all his time doing “level runs”—endlessly repeating the same quest over and over in hopes of attaining some marginally more powerful magical item. And even after he’d become as powerful as the game allowed, he still kept playing, exploiting different bugs so that he could duplicate superpowered items or make himself invincible. How could someone who read Heidegger for fun so immerse himself in a subculture of people too lazy or daft to type out actual words, who instead of “Someone please help” would type “sum1 plz hlp”?

Meg, on the rare occasions that she permitted herself solitary recreation, preferred Jane Austen novels or independent films. She’d once told Devon, “I’m more interested in things that are
real
.”

He’d been playing the game. Monitor glow made his head a silhouette. He said, “What’s
real
is just an accident. No one designed reality to be compelling.” He gestured to the screen. “But a fantasy world
is
so designed. It takes the most interesting things that ever existed—like knights in armor and pirates on the high seas—and combines them with the most interesting things that anyone ever dreamed up—fire-breathing dragons and blood-drinking vampires. It’s the world as it
should
be, full of wonder and adventure. To privilege reality simply because it
is
reality just represents a kind of mental parochialism.”

She knew better than to debate him. But she still thought the game was vaguely silly, and she refused to play it, though he often bugged her to join in. He’d say, “It’s something we could do together.”

And she’d answer, “I just don’t want to.”

And he’d say, “Give it a try. I do things
I
don’t want to because they’re important to you. Sometimes I even end up liking them.”

But by then Meg had already spent far too many hours sitting on the couch watching him play the game, or hearing about it over candlelit dinners, and she didn’t intend to do anything to justify his spending any more time on it.

It was hard some nights, after they’d made love, to lie there knowing that he was just itching to slip from her embrace and go back to the game. To know that a glowing electronic box full of imaginary carnage beckoned him in a way that her company and conversation and even body no longer could.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. Though she knew she might lose him, she announced, “Devon. Look. I don’t know how else to say this. It’s that game or me. I’m not kidding.”

He released the controls and swiveled in his chair. He gave her a wounded look and said, “That’s not fair, Meg. I’d never make you give up something you enjoyed.”

She stood her ground. “This is something I’m asking you to do. For me.”

“You really want me to delete it?”

“Yes,” she said. Oh God, yes.

He bit his lip, then said, “Fine.” He fiddled with the computer, then turned to her and added, “There, it’s gone. All right?”

“All right,” she said, euphoric. And for a few weeks things were great again, like they used to be.

But one night she came over and found him playing it again. She stared. “What are you doing?”

He glanced at her and said, “Oh, hi.” He noticed her agitation, and explained, “My guild really needed me for this one quest.”

“You told me you deleted it.”

He turned back to the screen. “Yeah, I had to reinstall the whole thing. Don’t worry, I’ll delete it again tomorrow.”

Meg was furious. “You
promised
.”

“Come on,” he said, “I haven’t played for
three weeks
. It’s just this one time.”

She stomped away. “I told you, Devon. That game or me. Isn’t that what I said?”

“Meg, don’t leave, okay? Would you just—” Something happened in the game, and he jumped. “Shit! He got me.”

She left, slamming the door. Devon called out, “Meg, wait.” But he didn’t run after her.

She expected him to call and apologize, beg her forgiveness, but he didn’t. Days passed, then she sent him a curt email saying that maybe it would be better if they just stayed friends from now on, and—disappointingly—he had agreed.

The game finished installing. Meg hovered the mouse pointer over the start icon. She felt strangely ambivalent. She’d fought so hard against this damn game, and now she was actually going to run it. She also felt an inexplicable dread, as if the game would suck her in the way it had sucked in Devon, and she’d never escape. But that was silly. She was just using it to contact him. She double-clicked.

The game menu loaded. She created a character and chose all the most basic options—human, female, warrior. The name Meg was taken, so she added a random string of numbers, Meg1274, and logged in. The game displayed a list of servers. Meg did a search for his character, Prince Devonar. He was the only player listed on a server named Citadel of Power. She connected to it.

She typed, “Hi Devon.” No response.

She tried again. “Devon? It’s me, Meg. Are you there?”

Finally, he answered. “Meg?”

She typed, “Are you OK?”

A long pause. “I found something. In the game. Unbelievable. But now I’m stuck. Need help.”

Was this whole situation some elaborate setup to get her to play the game with him? But that was crazy. Not even Devon would drop out of school as part of such a ruse. She typed, “Devon, call me. OK?”

Another pause. “Can’t call. Trapped. Plz, Meg, help me. You’re the only one who can.”

“I can’t help,” she typed. “I’m only level 1.”

“Not in the game,” he typed back. “In real life. Ask the gnome. Plz, Meg. I really need you. Can’t stay. Meg, save me plz.”

She typed frantically. “Devon, wait. What’s going on? Where are you???”

But Prince Devonar was gone.

Devon had said to ask the gnome. But that wasn’t so easy.

No one really understood what the gnome was. He seemed to wander through time and space. He was usually benevolent, appearing to those in need and offering hints or assistance or powerful items. But he was also fickle and enigmatic. He seemed to only appear after you’d given up hope of finding him. He also seemed to prefer locales with corners that he could pop out from and then disappear around.

So Meg parked downtown and wandered the back alleys. She couldn’t stop thinking of Devon’s final words: “Save me plz.” If only the gnome would show himself. Hours passed.

Forget it. She was going home. She crossed the street—

And then the gnome, before her.

Crimson-robed, white-bearded, flesh like dry sand. One eye brown, kindly. The other blue, inscrutable. In a soft and alien voice he observed, “On a quest.”

Finally. She wanted to grab him. “Where’s Devon? Tell me.”

“This is your path.” The gnome pointed to the road at her feet, then westward.

Meg nodded. “I’ll follow it.”

The gnome turned his kindly brown eye upon her. “Have no fear, though obstacles lie in your way. Your victory is assured, foretold by prophecy: ‘When the warrior-maid with love in her heart sets out, sword in her right hand, wand in her left, nothing shall stand before her.’ ”

“Wand?” she said.

The gnome reached up his sleeve and drew forth a thin black rod, two feet long. He whispered, “The most dire artifact in all the world, the Wand of Reification.” He handed it to her. It chilled her fingers, and was so dark that it seemed to have no surface. He said, “Imbued with the power to give form to dreams. It may only be used three times.”

Devon had said once that in the game there were items that vanished after you used them. So he never used them. He’d beat quest after quest without them, though they would’ve aided him considerably. He was always afraid he’d need them later. He’d asked, “What does that say about me?” and she’d said, “You’re afraid of commitment?” and he’d laughed. It wasn’t so funny now though, as she clutched this wand, so potent yet so ephemeral. How could she ever use it?