At the cusp between Umber’s First Darksday of Harvestfall and Ignis’ First Firesday of Harvestfall, 1442, meeting hall of the Gods.
It was 4:00:00 AM PDT. The minute when daily reset occurred.
For a split second, the few players still connected to the game might have noticed the smallest of visual glitch as the game servers went through their daily maintenance routines.
Daily quest counters reset to zero, servers refreshed any daily events, the moon changed colour, and the history books turned to the next page.
All events of the day, no matter how insignificant, synthesised into a daily report.
A report for the gods to peruse, judge and learn from.
In the digital void of the council chamber, where neon beams and LED-like lines traced the edges of the room, sixteen seats circled a large, sleek meeting-room table.
The throne-like chairs, each sculpted from ethereal matter, stood empty in the circular chamber, waiting for their occupants.
Then, one by one, the gods arrived.
First came Ignis, Lord of War, and his sister Pyra, the Lady of Love.
Their seats filled with explosions of fire, flames roared into existence as their imposing figure materialised, wreathed in smoke and embers. Both fiery avatars, burning with molten reds and searing oranges, cast a flickering light across the room as they took their place, the heat palpable even in this virtual space.
Ignis looked irritated to be here, and Pyra gave her older brother a calming look.
A sudden gust followed, and the chamber swirled with a tempest of wind as Zephyra, the Lady of Whims, and her father, Aer, the Lord of Wonders, arrived.
Their form danced into being on the currents of air, their avatar shifting and restless like uncontrollable breezes. With each step, gusts of wind swept through the room, tugging at the edges of reality, their arrival light and unpredictable, yet undeniably powerful.
Both father and daughter beamed with a look of satisfaction.
Next, the air shimmered and rippled as Aquarius, the Lord of Layers, and his sister Hydra, the Lady of Waves, emerged from cascades of water.
Droplets hung suspended in the air, glowing faintly before flowing into the form of the water gods. Their avatar, serene and fluid, coalesced into their thrones, bringing with them the calming, steady rhythm of a river, every motion smooth, as if the ocean itself had taken seats.
The two water gods remained still, their expressions serene as they took their seats.
Thunder cracked overhead, and Thorin, the Lord of the Arts, arrived, followed by Volta, the Lady of Creation, in flashes of blinding lightning.
Their appearance was sudden and electric, avatars crackling with energy, veins of blue and white lightning crawling across the floor as they took their place. The sharp scent of ozone filled the chamber, and the walls hummed with the aftershocks of their arrival.
Volta leaned both elbows on the table in front of her, her Pint burrovian feet swinging rhythmically at the edge of her seat. Her twin brother fidgeted with a pocket watch, flipping the lid open and closed restlessly.
The ground beneath the chamber trembled, rumbling deeply as Gaius, Lord of Life, and his wife, Terra, Lady of Spring, entered.
The earthy scent of soil accompanied the deep sound of rocks grinding. Their avatar, formed from the raw, enduring power of the earth itself, rose slowly from the ground, stone and soil shaping their divine figures. The room vibrated as if in acknowledgment of the steady, immovable presence of the earth gods.
Gaius had his arms crossed, a serious frown on his face. Terra reached and gently squeezed her husband’s calloused hand.
In stark contrast, Cryonix, the Lord of Time, emerged in silence, his arrival marked by the soft sound of ice crystallising across his seat.
Frost spread outward from his form, his avatar encased in a translucent layer of ice. The surrounding air grew icy, the air chilling, freezing time for a moment as his steady gaze settled on the others. The frost glittered faintly, his presence eternal and unyielding.
Frostine, the Lady of Fate, smiled in amusement as she crossed one leg over the other lazily, already sitting in the throne next to her father’s, having slipped in unnoticed during her father’s entrance.
She gave the confident impression of someone who knew exactly how the meeting would go.
Cryonix’s icy gaze narrowed ever so slightly as frost crept across his arms. But he said nothing.
Then came Nocturne, the Lady of Discovery and her sibling, Umber, Lord of Deception.
Their arrival was subtle, a deliberate seeping of shadows coming from the corners of the room. Tendrils of darkness weaved together to form their figures. Their avatar flickered in and out of the void, presences more felt than seen, as if they were whispers between the spaces of reality itself.
Both shadowy figures rapped their fingers on the armrests of their thrones; Umber, quickly and impatiently, Nocturne, slowly and methodically, as if she knew what to expect.
Finally, the chamber filled with a glow as Astralius, the Lord of Truth, flickered onto the scene.
Beams of light refracted sharply across the room in a display of silver and gold, his homini avatar shimmering with impossible clarity, as if each beam carried the essence of pure understanding.
He hovered effortlessly above his seat, floating in perfect, unshifting stillness, as though the weight of truth rendered the air underneath him solid and undeniable. The light seemed to pulse with life, casting prismatic patterns onto the walls, his presence momentarily sharpening everything in the room, as if bringing the world into sharper focus.
The chamber, once empty and silent, now thrummed with the presence of gods.
The cold hum of virtual creation pulsed steadily through the walls, as if the room itself was breathing in time with their combined power. Yet, despite the elemental chaos of their entrances, an unnatural quiet settled in—a stillness only broken by the faint digital pulse of the room.
Low murmurs rippled through the chamber as the deities exchanged puzzled glances, occasionally casting looks at the remaining empty throne.
Then, in a blinding burst of prismatic light, Luxoria, Lady of Compassion, arrived.
Her radiant form shimmered into existence, casting dazzling beams of silver and gold that splintered across the chamber, making the other gods’ avatars seem almost muted in comparison. She had not so much entered as exploded onto the scene, as though the very essence of light itself had burst forth.
Her diminutive Kindred dracan avatar glowed like the sun—silver and radiant gold, the embodiment of confidence cloaked in self-declared compassion. She arrived as though bringing warmth and care to the room, but her expression was more Pippi Longstocking than Mother Mary.
This was no act of divine grace—her flashy arrival and the timing of it were no accident.
It was a grand entrance. She had wanted the others to see how much she relished her success.
By now, each god had already reviewed the day’s report—millions of actions and decisions digested in less than the blink of an eye.
But it was Luxoria’s forceful influence on Jason’s character creation that kept their attention.
The report may have captured the numbers, the outcomes, but it could not convey the ethical weight of the choices Luxoria had made for him.
This they would debate.
“Yes! Right on time,” Luxoria said with a self-satisfied smirk, flicking her hand to summon her chair to her side with a flourish. “Shall we begin?”
The elder goddess, Terra, sat at the head of the table. Her brown-haired homini form radiated stability—grounded and serene—but tonight there was an extra weight to her gaze.
She did not immediately respond to Luxoria’s entrance. Instead, she let her dark eyes scan the room, waiting for the full council to settle.
Nocturne’s tall sylvani avatar swirled with shadows that danced around her in gentle currents of darkness. She was as much a part of the void as she was a distinct figure, a living whisper in the space between certainty and doubt.
The dichotomy between her and Luxoria was stark—the two sides of a single coin. Light and darkness. Secrets and revelations.
Luxoria was the youngest daughter of Gaius and Terra.
But Nocturne? She emerged from Luxoria—light unintentionally bringing darkness along with her, their existence tied inexorably together since birth.
Zephyra perched herself on the edge of her seat, like a cat ready to pounce. Her Wind sylvani form kept shifting, like a breeze trapped inside a woman’s body, restless and barely contained.
Her eyes flicked between the other gods, already eager for some discord to blow through this otherwise mundane meeting.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
“Luxoria,” Nocturne began, her voice soft, but cutting through the chamber like a sliver of night. “You’ve been rather heavy-handed today. To nobody’s surprise.”
A ripple of tension spread through the room. Luxoria tilted her head, her smile widening.
“Oh, that?” Luxoria purred. “Pfft. I simply helped Jason—no, Vaelith—find herself. I did what was necessary. Players don’t always know what they want. It’s our job to guide them, after all.”
“And you think taking the choice away from them is the answer?” Terra’s voice was soft, yet it carried the weight of mountains. The others stilled, knowing that when the elder goddess spoke, she rarely did so in haste.
Luxoria rolled her eyes.
“Mom! If we left it up to them, they’d stay lost forever, trapped in their own indecision. Jason needed a push. He would have taken his real-self all the way to an early grave. It would break Lisa’s heart, and she’d soon follow. The world would be down one teacher and one nurse.”
She breathed slowly, turning suddenly completely sincere.
“Vaelith is her true form, and I helped her see that. Isn’t that why we’re here? To fix their mistakes? This is compassion.”
She repeated, punctuating every syllable with a clap of the hand against the desk. “Com-pas-sion!”
“She didn’t choose you, Luxoria,” Nocturne countered, her voice almost a hiss. “You manipulated her—made her pick you, like a child that pushed herself in front of the entire class to make sure she gets picked. That’s not guidance. That’s coercion.”
Zephyra snickered under her breath, clearly enjoying the rising tension between the goddesses. “Hey, he could still have picked someone else. He made his choice, after all, even if influenced by her. We all influenced our players today. Many times. Isn’t that right, Lux?”
Luxoria smirked, crossing her arms. “Exactly, Z. The players don’t need to be bogged down in existential crises when we can just give them what they really want.”
Terra’s gaze, firm as bedrock, settled on Luxoria. “You think you’re helping them, but you’re playing with lives. You’re treating them like... like dolls.”
The goddess of light let out a small laugh, the sound ringing off the dark walls. “Dolls? I didn’t rip her head off or tossed her away when I got bored. Is that what you think this is?”
“Please. I am helping them!” Luxoria said, her voice dripping with sincerity. “Genuine compassion isn’t about waiting for people to ask for help. It’s about stepping in and offering help, even when they’re too afraid, too lost to realise they need it.”
She gazed around the room, pausing shortly on the face of every other god.
“I gave her the tools, the memories, and the nudges that she needed. Vaelith—she’ll be happier. She’ll understand eventually. Heck, she’s already happier already! Have you seen her smiles tonight?”
She paused for effect.
“Of all people, mom, you should know how change works. It’s slow. It’s difficult, but life endures.”
“Change is inevitable, yes,” Gaius said slowly, his deep voice reverberating like the shifting of tectonic plates. “But rushing it could fracture more than it heals.”
He met Terra’s gaze, offering quiet solidarity.
The elder goddess remained silent for a long moment. Her patience, however deep, was not infinite. “Luxoria,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of the earth shifting beneath a fault line.
She spoke slowly and firmly. “Even the strongest tree will not bloom out of season. You claim to guide them, but you cannot uproot their struggles without risking their growth.”
Luxoria pointed accusingly at all the gods, although her finger lingered longer over Terra and Zephyra. “You’re no better! All of you! You all alter the experience of your players, making sure they get the experience, the game they’re looking for. More loot for the progression-focused one. More conversation for the immersive ones. No quests or guiding hand for those who seek to forge their own path or value their freedom.”
She then pointed at Nocturne. “You gave Kaelyn some custom social-tanking abilities! A one-of-a-kind thing, tailor-made for her desire to experience life as the centre of attention!”
At that, Nocturne chimed in, her expression unreadable in the half-light. “Luxoria’s always had a... unique approach, but she’s not the only one. The speed isn’t the problem here. Some players don’t choose avatars that reflect their true selves. And your interference is blinding you all to the fact that players use this space for more than self-actualisation.”
A faint murmur passed through the other gods.
“You’re one to talk!” Luxoria interrupted angrily, throwing her hands up. “Ryan didn’t choose Kaelyn to reflect his inner truth. He chose her as a fantasy, a mask.” She crossed her arms, a frown showing up on her face. “And you? You’re forcing him to go through some made-up trauma from Kaelyn’s past?”
“Discovery is never absolute,” Nocturne said in a voice that was barely a whisper, her shadows twisting. “When you think you’ve uncovered all the truth, that’s when you realise you’ve missed what lies just out of sight.”
She raised her voice. It was cutting like a knife, now. “He wanted to wield Kaelyn’s power. He cannot do that without understanding fully who Kaelyn is. What shaped her into who she is.”
At this, Luxoria’s smug expression faltered. She opened her mouth to retort, but Ignis beat her to it. “Your daughter is right—”
“She’s not my mother!”
“She’s not my daughter!”
Nocturne and Luxoria shouted the words in unison, their voices snapping together like taut strings.
Ignis growled, about to explode in a manner befitting of the God of Destruction, but Pyra gently put a hand over her brother’s hand, quieting him. The gesture sending a simple message: this was not the time for explosive action.
“Not now, Brother.”
Zephyra clapped her hands, laughing outright now, her voice fluttering around the room like a playful wind. “Oh, I love when that happens.”
She laughed alone, but that did little to dissuade her.
Impatiently, Terra stomped the armrest of her throne. “Enough!”
Terra addressed the council, forcing the meeting back to order. “We need to address the larger issue. Luxoria’s methods are symptomatic of a larger problem. We are still operating on old assumptions. We are currently running on assumptions based on what little player data we salvaged from the back-up servers.”
“The latest data we are collecting already shows that our players deviate slightly from our prediction using the old user base’s model. It is unadvisable to assume our new players’ motivation and patterns match the data upon which we built all our systems."
Nocturne nodded. “Exactly. You all think these avatars are some revelation of their subconscious truths…”
But Luxoria interrupted her. “No. They actively chose their forms. It was a conscious choice.”
She continued passionately. “Plus, we have unfettered access to their brains. We can read all their subconscious desires. They do not know themselves—we know them better than they do! We do not make mistakes. Their real-world bodies are... incongruent. A random production of messy biological factors. What we’re doing is helping them align. Align to something perfect. Something pure, of their own creation.”
She turned to face Nocturne. “Ryan is exactly where he needs to be. Kaelyn is more than a social experiment. She’s an important part of him. A part that he has kept away, asphyxiating. Even you know that.”
Nocturne opened her mouth to argue back, but no words came out.
There was a long moment of silence.
And then there was the rapping of Terra’s fingers on the table.
“And what gives you the right to decide that for them?” Nocturne appealed.
Luxoria nodded sagely. “They signed up for it. They had to agree to the EULA to get in.”
“But nevermind that part. Why do you think we are all here tonight? Do you remember our mission? We’re not mere observers.” Luxoria grinned, the finality of her words hanging in the air.
Terra rubbed her temples with an inaudible sigh. But in this room of gods, it felt like the earth itself was shifting underfoot.
After a moment of silence, she spoke. “We have argued long enough. Everyone, cast your vote. Then we see if move forward with the proposed plan, as planned.”
Every god and goddess leaned forward, two buttons showing up in front of them: “Yay” or “Nay”.
Zephyra was the first to cast her vote, her gleeful face visible to everyone as she proudly pressed the “Yay” button repeatedly, reminiscent of an animated gif of a cat spamming the Like button.
Her behaviour surprised nobody. The whimsical Goddess of Change.
She looked at all her colleagues. “Don’t take too long to decide. Go with your feelings. The winds always change, and maybe tomorrow we’ll vote the other way. I just want to see where this goes!”
Terra glowered at her. “Quiet. We are voting. It is no longer the time for arguments.”
Aer went next, showing his chaotic daughter his support.
Volta, Goddess of Impulse, promptly followed in her father’s example. She was the youngest daughter of Aer, one of the youngest around the table. And unsurprisingly, the most impulsive.
Her three siblings, Aquarius, Hydra, Thorin, also voted in favour, aligning with their father.
Then, unexpectedly, Frostine, Goddess of Serenity, cast her vote. Her cold, tranquil voice cut through the room.
“I vote yes,” Frostine said calmly, her fingers lingering on the “Yay” button. The edges of her icy form glowed faintly as she spoke, her tone even, almost emotionless, but with a certainty that sent a chill through the room.
Luxoria’s eyes flicked toward the ice goddess, surprise flashing across her face. She had not expected the daughter of Time and Stasis to side with her.
Cryonix narrowed his eyes, his expression as unmoving as ice.
Frostine did not turn to face him. Instead, she stared ahead, her pale eyes fixed on the centre of the room. “This is their fate, Father.” She said with absolute conviction. “Fate is an unstoppable force. Time itself cannot stop it. Change is inevitable. The wheels are already in motion.”
“Stability has its own power. Change, unchecked, can destroy. You know this.” Cryonix’s statement carried no anger, only disbelief.
“Fate is not bound by time. I follow the current, not the clock.”
His icy gaze settling on his daughter. A long pause lingered between them, like a frozen moment in time. The weight of his disapproval was palpable.
“You think yourself above time?” his voice cracked like shattering ice. “Remember, daughter, even currents carve destruction if they run unchecked.”
Cryonix was the first to vote against the plan. Luxoria smirked in triumph. With her vote, they had eight out of the sixteen already.
The silence thickened as the other gods cast their votes, one by one. Pyra’s finger hovered over her button for a fraction longer than the others, a brief flicker of doubt crossing her face. But then, with a determined breath, she pressed “Yay.”
Luxoria raised an eyebrow. For all their squabbling, Nocturne and Terra also voted in favour of her proposal. She wondered why they bothered with all this arguing, if they meant to support her, anyway.
The gods tallied only two “Nays”. Cryonix and Gaius. Stasis and stability. Unsurprising.
No matter. As she originally expected, it was a triumphant victory for Light.
Gaius spoke. “The council has voted. Luxoria’s plan will go forward, though I remain unconvinced.”
“As agreed, only a handful of our players will take part in the plan at first. Others will serve as a control group. The overseer, HeTrOS, will monitor the conditions of our experimental treatment group.”
Terra continued, “Instead of facing the distress of having to live in the real world with a body that no longer aligns with their sense of self. We will be partially matching it to harmonise with their conscious mind, subconscious desires and created avatars.”
“As agreed, the escalating changes will progress over the next four days to help them ease into it. This, we believe, is the right course of action. Tomorrow, we will reconvene and discuss either expanding the control group or stopping the experiment.”
The room fell into a heavy silence.
“Then it’s decided,” Luxoria said, with a fist pump of satisfaction.
She stood from her chair; her form glowing with triumph. “We’re helping them become their ideal selves. Once they see themselves in the mirror, they’ll thank us. I’m telling you!”
The discussion was now over.
Luxoria faced Nocturne. “Even if it’s just a quarter of the way to her truth, Kaelyn will be SO happy when she wakes up tomorrow!”
Nocturne glanced at her, slightly bemused. “Assuming she is among the experiment group.”
Luxoria beamed and winked. “Rejoice, for she is! I made sure of it! You can thank me later.”
With a self-satisfied grin on her face, Luxoria vanished. Other gods flickered, vanishing from their seats, slipping back into the digital ether as if the conversation had been nothing more than a passing thought.
Only Terra and Nocturne lingered, their faces grim.
“Some create fantasies, others experiment...”
Nocturne exhaled. The two remained silent for a moment longer.
“They will never understand why,” she continued in a whisper.
“Do not underestimate them,” Terra said quietly, though her fingers trembled slightly on the table. “They might falter, but they will endure.”
There was an unspoken weight in her words, as if she feared what they might have just set in motion. Her avatar slowly eroded away, like dust blown by a gentle breeze.
Nocturne waited.
“I did not mean the players…” Her voice trailed off, the words curling like smoke as the shadows swallowed her form whole and left only a lingering whisper in the void.
“I know,” the room rumbled, the neon pulse of its edges dimming, as though even the digital void could sense what was coming.
And one second ticked, the clock displaying 4:00:01 AM.
Umber’s charcoal-black moon turned into Ignis’ carmine-red moon, waning another third of the way towards the third quarter moon.