The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 152: Aftermath

After the event, Crucis was teleported back into the cloud-like lobby.

It was noticeably less crowded than earlier, although a few players were still appearing over time. Most had gathered into small Guild-based circles, and were tiredly congratulating each other. A few had been badly injured, and were occasionally screaming or moaning from the pain, even though their visible injuries had healed automatically after the event.

His steps in the lobby had a sense of weightlessness, as it descended slowly towards the ground.

Since he couldn't recognise anyone yet, he stood in place and caught his breath while looking around. There was a circle of five Hashin in a corner, getting pointed stares from other Guilds, but from the snippets of their conversation he heard it was clear that they were friends of Awdimir and probably best avoided. It seemed that the surviving players were still divided automatically between the different lobbies, so it was possible that people like Dr1fter wouldn't be here.

He noticed a band of NPCs in one corner of the room, playing music for the lobby. An NPC with a blonde mohawk and lower-lip ring was singing a punchy song backed by acoustic guitar, with a catchy rhythm. From large, black letters on a cardboard banner behind them, Crucis could tell that this band was named 'The Certified Supervillains.'

They wore large, intentionally obnoxious trenchcoats, and the vocalist had even added shoulder spikes to his.

This song, named 'The Masterplan,' was upbeat, light-hearted and high-tempo, with a few players tapping their feet to it without thinking. However, by the final verse the vocalist slowed to a speaking voice, if an intentionally camp one.

Princess, damsel in distress,

Ooh, girl, you're a miserable pile of secrets,

So let me explain my masterplan.

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

Oh yeah.

Your knight in shining armour will surely fail

Against my lair's impenetrable defences,

I won't have the same problems with you, ooh, ooh, ooh.

I only hold you because I know

You'll try to escape (cheap thrills) -

And you'll rue the day you heard my name.

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

Oh yeah.

I know you think you're

Better than me, and I'm not enough for you,

But when you see my power

And my crystal castles,

Then you'll forget all about your lame hero.

Even if you claim that I'm a wretch

Soon I'll be all over you like Jervis Tetch,

And you'll let me do it.

So now pull your pool wide open

And then I'll fill it with sharks.

But, first, you'd better learn to let your heart desire.

Why, you ask?

For brevity's sake, I'd say it's because

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

I'm gonna grab you by the pussy,

Oh yeah.

And they'll say, look at that supervillain,

He's wearing black, has a lair in the mountains,

He's even stroking that pussy.

The ultimate supervillain.

While listening, Crucis noticed Danemy and one more DeathGang member appearing on the left of the lobby. He walked over to join their conversation.

"Hey, thanks for helping," Danemy said, high-fiving him as he approached. "So Dicing and Darys made it through, but Dicing picked up an injury. He sent a message in Guild chat saying we can wait for the afternoon and see if he's ready for dungeons. If not, he'll help us figure something else out."

"Thanks, hope Dicing makes it," Crucis said. "Was he with Darys? What happened to the others there?"

"Darys and Dicing were fine, but Akshel died, he'll have to respawn in an hour and see how he feels," the other DeathGang member replied calmly.

"That's [KurtCobainsDog], by the way," Danemy said, turning to Crucis. "Not, like, literally. He's just a Nirvana fan. But a good guy, despite that. He's always on top of things."

Crucis shook hands firmly with this player.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Iggy," [KurtCobainsDog] said. "Thanks for helping Danny, that was a pretty tough event."

"Thanks, and well done making it through," Crucis replied. "You mentioned injuries, any idea how that's going to work? People seem to have been restored to normal after the event, unless they died, but I can tell a few here are in pain."

"Well, official word from GMs is that the wounds might heal, but if people had arms or legs cut off then they would continue to feel intense pain in that limb for at least a few days. Also paralysis or a 'dead arm.' They added that 'some' players may suffer worse effects, probably meaning the ones with names showing. If it gets unbearable, then the GMs said that a tried and tested solution is to make a new alt: if they switch to that, the pain will disappear and they can use their body normally."

"So people will be forced to use alts for the next few days?"

"Seems like it."

"Speaking of alts," Danemy said, "weren't we planning to make Temperant alts? This could be a decent time for it, since we'll be waiting 5-6 hours minimum for Dicing."

"Yeah, sure. I'll also get a chance to take my Mage alt for a dungeon run," Crucis said. "Should we start with the Temperant alts now?"

"Not yet, you can do the dungeons first," Danemy said, smiling. "I'll have to help drag the injured DG members get to Kruxol for treatment. Maybe also Starfighter, since he's on our territory right now."

"Oh, Starfighter? He's pretty tough, I'm sure he'll be back to normal soon. Bet he'll be exploring the caves up North by this evening, and livestreaming it."

Danemy laughed.

"Hm, here's something interesting. With most of the strong players away, they're saying that some smaller ones are taking the opportunity to try doing dungeons," KurtCobainsDog said, looking through his Guild chat. "It'll be a good hunt for the rest of us."

"I'm too tired for chasing small people around right now," Crucis laughed. "But at least it'll give us something else to do until the afternoon."

"I'll have a look around with Iggy," Danemy said.

"For now, I'm sure people will be cautious when they see big players coming back," KurtCobainsDog replied. "But after people realise that most top players are exhausted or injured, then a few will probably try their luck again."

"Yeah, we can run into the wild a bit, then do other stuff to recharge for a few hours. By then, there will probably be more targets. Still, we'll probably be back to Kruxol in a few minutes, where should we hunt players?"

"Hm... Most players are still going to be careful about entering DeathGang territory to the East, so most players will probably be in the North or West journeying to low-level dungeons there. We can start in the North, then loop around to the West."

"Alright, that's a plan," Crucis said. "Tell you what, where are the closest level 40 or 50 dungeons?"

"West, South of Sanra. It appeared after the draugr invasion, called the Tomb of Risi."

"Got it. If you guys are circling around to the West, then maybe you can wait outside that, and I'll help you ambush my team-mates. I'm not going to need them after the dungeon, right?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Danemy said. "Tell us when you're reaching the dungeon, we'll make our way over. I don't know how difficult it is, I guess you'll find out."

KurtCobainsDog piped up. "I hear that the undead there are hard, but the rest, not so much. In fact - woah, what the hell?"

They were interrupted by the loud sound of guitar feedback from the corner, and Crucis saw that The Certified Supervillains had now abruptly switched to heavily distorted electric guitars, and were playing what seemed to be an alt-rock or metalcore song. The singer wailed anarchically into the mic, occasionally screaming. A few players nearby had turned around in alarm at the sudden wall of sound, but the band carried on unconcerned.

The song was named 'The Devil You Know'.

Breathless,

Hear voices in my head screaming

At me to give up,

Saying I'm a fraud,

Saying I've failed,

And all I know is - I'll never be okay!

I'll always be a failure,

Looking back on defeat,

I'll always live in this moment

With you standing over me -

I hate it!

Your voice won't take me down

Don't tell me

I've failed, I'm wrong, I'm evil,

I don't hear the sound,

You're just another voice that tortures me inside

You're just another voice that I despise

I blame it all on you,

I blame it all on them!

(How I let myself down)

Pure evil!

I've nothing to lose

When all I look back on is defeat.

Pure evil!

You've won this fight

For now.

This won't be the last of me...

The devil you know!

I've always been paranoid

That someone's out to get me

And now I know

That you're out to get me!

I hear your taunts when I've walked away

I hear from you more than you'd say,

I blame it all on you,

I blame it all on them!

Pure evil!

I've nothing to lose

When all I look back on is defeat.

Pure evil!

You've won this fight

For now.

This won't be the last of me...

The devil you know!

A few players had formed a semi-circle around the band, to complain about the loud music.

"Huh," KurtCobainsDog said, as the music died down, "that was a surprisingly gnarly take on elevator music."

"So is Nirvana," Danemy said.

"Excuse me, don't you dare put down Nirvana in my presence."

"Alright, I'll stop for now, I don't want to mess with a rabid dog. You should be put down. Anyway, any news on the rankings for this event?"

"Yeah, I think you can access them. Just open Guild chat or a chat window, and switch from the 'Chat' tab to the 'Event' one. There should be a banner for this event, with a 'Ranking' button beneath it. Then you can select which section of the event."

Crucis navigated to the rankings for the fight between melee classes, and saw that most players had been greyed-out, meaning that they had died during the event. He estimated quickly that only around 150-200 players had survived, out of around a thousand names. Almost a third of the survivors were right near the bottom of the ranking, however, and had probably shown up late enough that they avoided conflict.

According to a small panel of text beneath the ranking table, the Aesir side had accumulated much more Divine Mana than the Vanir in this area of the event. However, in the ranged and magic battles, things were closer, with the Vanir just about winning out in the former and the Aesir prevailing in the latter. He quickly tabbed to look at the rankings for the other battles, and saw that the magic battle was a bloodbath with under 50 players left alive.

He switched back to view the melee battle rankings, which Danemy was occasionally remarking about.

At the top was an unsurprising collection of major Guild leaders and large players. The first-placed player was the [Stranded] Guild leader, and in second place was the greyed-out leader of [Erasure]. These players had the most Ivaldi Gold, although the game didn't specify how much. Seemingly, their place in the centre of the action, and the help of other players who closely protected them, had meant that these players had quickly racked up more rewards even if they died later on.

After that, a Hashin player with a garbled name, who Crucis guessed was Dr1fter, was in third. A few more Hashin appeared in the top 20, including Immisera, although players from [Stranded] were the most common. There was also a [Machu Pichu] player in there, surprisingly, although probably not the one whom he had met in the tunnels.

Crucis had managed to edge into to the top 50 at the 46th position, the only non-Guild player to do so, while Danemy and Starfighter had crept into the top 100 in 98th and 95th. It was almost surprising to see Awdimir's name beneath his own rank, in 65th, but given Awdimir's injuries and missing hand it wasn't that surprising.

"Well done on top 100, Dan," he said.

"Thanks," Danemy replied. "It says the rewards are the same for everyone in the top 100 below 50th, so I'll be getting the same rewards as Awdimir. Fancy that. Wonder what happened to the Hashin golden boy."

"Who knows? Anyway, yeah, looks like rewards are given based on rungs, so top 10, top 20, top 50, etc. Top three get special rewards for each of them, though it looks like one of them won't be around to receive them."

"They got the Erasure leader? That's quite a scalp," KurtCobainsDog said.

"There's going to be a lot of leaderless Guilds out there now," Danemy said. "Good time for infighting."

"...Is this a good time to mention that I haven't forgiven you for calling me 'rabid' just yet?"

"Have you forgiven Kurt for killing himself?"

"How dare you! You've ruined the -"

"Seems like we're nearly back, the lobby sounds like it's beginning to land," Crucis said, quieting their quarrel. "So you guys are going North, and I'll try finding a team to go West? Maybe we'll meet up after that."

The lobby lurched as it struck the ground.

"Sure thing," Danemy said.

In a few moments, the lobby faded, and Crucis found himself back in his room in the inn.

The text panel to his left, which had been hidden in the lobby, reappeared. In it was a flashing red message, six minutes old, which he skimmed over quickly.

[World Event Ended!

The Aesir and Vanir have restored their peace, after the Aesir's capture of Freyja mellowed the Vanir will to fight. The Aesir, despite being warlike, were by now closely associated with the Vanir and would have been ashamed to harm or imprison their brethren.

After some negotiations between her and the Aesir leaders, the two sides have come to an agreement which expands the dominion of the Aesir and the power they receive from prayer, but leaves some disputed cultivable territory near Yggdrasil to the Vanir. The Asuras relented on seeing the restored unity of Aesir and Vanir forces, but many miles of the heavens were razed by their demonic forces.

The aftermath of this event will be felt on both heaven and earth.

Congratulations to all participants! All rewards will be mailed to you over the forthcoming hours.

Ivaldi Gold may be redeemed in a store that will open soon in the Event tab.]