Arcanaville

The Immortal Game

Part Three: Removing the Pin



The sun was slowly setting, its auburn disk seeming to merge with the horizon and then slowly descend below it. Mender Silos had lived through a billion sunrises and sunsets, and yet had actually seen so few of them. He could not remember the last time he had stopped to experience one. He could not remember the first time he had stopped to experience one. And though time grew short, he decided that for the last time, perhaps, he would pause to take one in.

The Earth rotated about its axis, and as it did his position upon the Earth's surface changed the radial orientation of his sightline relative to the Sun. The atmosphere altered the Sun's radiation in complex ways, scattering, diffracting, and absorbing photons in a calculable way. There were only a few islands here, north of Peregrine Island, and the Sun slowly dipped below the flat, calm ocean. As the Sun disappeared below the horizon, the man once known as the Prussian Prince of Automatons reflected upon the clockwork mechanics of the world he was about to destroy. To save the world, he would have to destroy it, although that task ultimately was in the hands of another. But there was still a problem in his hands. At best, the plan conjured by the Dream Doctor was flawed. There were many ways it could fail. Which is why the Dream Doctor entrusted it to him. He did not want the Mender, he wanted the Schemer. And Silos would deliver him.

The sky had turned black, and the stars were now visible. They moved slowly in arcs reflecting the rotation of the Earth; too slowly for most people to notice, but not too slowly for Silos who followed their motion for many minutes. As the moon illuminated the landscape, Silos realized that it was only at this moment that he decided to take this final step; the one that would forever seal his fate. The Dream Doctor would never approve, of course, but that was always a problem with those like him: they were rarely willing to do all that was necessary. He was, and one look into Cole's eyes was all it took for him to know it of Cole, and Cole to know it of him. It was something only those of their ilk could truly understand, and truly recognize in others.

It was time. He took one final look at the world he would probably never see in the same way again, and then he was gone.

...

He appeared in a flash within a dark space. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the very dim light that was shimmering around him. Phosphorescent moss glowed with a soft, muted aura. Silos found himself in a large underground cave. Strange plants covered the stone walls and boggy ground. His own armor's various sensors and indicators were harsh spikes of light that interfered with his vision and he commanded them to darken. It would not do to be seen as he was, a small speck upon the bottom of the cavern, and he directed his armor to hover himself a full ten meters in altitude. He slowly drifted forward, towards an unusual rockface that appeared to be less overrun by vegetation. He stopped about thirty meters from it and waited. He had replayed this encounter a thousand times in his head and concluded it was important to concede the first move to his adversary.

Although he was certain he was detected the instant he arrived, it was a full ten minutes before anything happened. Slowly, at first, he noticed the rockface shifting. The vegetation seemed different somehow, although he couldn't quite tell in what way. The changes accelerated, and soon the rock face began to morph into a separate structure from the cavern wall. It detached itself, and then began to form a semblance of limbs. It turned to Silos - no, it didn't turn; its features seemed to slowly flow from the side opposite Silos to the side facing Silos, and he was soon gazing upon what appeared to be a giant homonculous of stone and overgrowth. It began to rustle, and then with a sound like rushing air through trees it spoke to Silos.

"Ra..pa..cious... De..spoil..er... You ... Have... Come... To... Seek... Your... Doom..."

The monstrous voice of the Avatar of Hamidon echoed throughout the cave. Silos moved slowly closer to the Avatar as he spoke. "Not exactly. Actually, on behalf of the human race, I've come to surrender. I am here seeking your terms."

"You... Will... Be... Scour..ered... From... The... Face... Of... Cre..a..tion. There... Will... Be... No... O..ther... Terms..."

Silos smiled. "Your terms are acceptable." Silos wondered if the sudden creaking of stone upon stone was the closest thing to surprise the Hamidon was capable of expressing.

"And now here are my terms."

...

The Immortal Game

Part Two: The Kings Gambit



Marcus Cole looked out upon the vast sea, upon which the structure he stood upon rested. It was beautiful, in an antiseptic way. Not like his beloved Praetoria. The city he protected and the people he nurtured. The city he destroyed, and the souls he consumed. He took a powerful breath and sighed.

"I will be missed. They will believe I have escaped."

"You will not be missed. When you return, you will return to the moment you left. No one will notice your absence."

Cole continued to look out towards the setting sun, if it was indeed a sun. "I know of you, Eisenstadt. Or should I say "Lord Nemesis." I have read of your exploits on Primal Earth."

"Lord Nemesis is dead. I am Mender Silos."

"Quibbling over names is silly."

"If you insist, 'Tyrant'" Silos replied.

"Touché"

"You are here because I have a proposal for you."

Cole paused, and then his gaze narrowed. "Nemesis or not, I do not trust you."

"I am not asking for your trust. There is a great threat approaching."

"I know of it" Cole replied testily. "Your precious 'Incarnates' have brought down all I struggled to create. I am now powerless against the Coming Storm. What could you possibly want from me?"

"I want to give that power back to you."

"Indeed?" Cole raised his brow. "Are you insane?"

"It appears to be communicable."

"I see. And how do you intend to do this? And to what end?"

"The Incarnates will not have the strength to repel the Coming Storm."

Cole snorted. "Only now do you realize this?"

"Don't be smug. You would not have been able to do so either. No: the problem is that the Battalion have grown too strong to defeat by purely defensive measures. Perhaps in time we can come up with a way to defeat them permanently, but in the meantime our priority must be to protect humanity from the Battalion, and deny them the Well of the Furies."

"And how do you propose to do this? Or rather how do you propose I do this?"

"The power of the Well will not be enough. We will seek to merge it with an even greater power." Cole started to speak, but decided against it, preferring to listen. "Have you heard of the being known as Rularuu?"

"I have heard of it. It is an almost omnipotent being, but it is flawed: its power trapped in a kaleidoscope of fractured shards. It cannot help us."

"On our Earth, there was a man named Darrin Wade. He sought to use the power of the Well of the Furies to merge with and control the essence of Rularuu. He killed our Marcus Cole and absorbed his potential to do it. He almost succeeded."

"You seek to have me succeed where he failed. And why would you trust me to do as you require once I gain omnipotence?"

"Two reasons. One: the merging is unstable. You will not be able to maintain it indefinitely, and if you try to do so the power will splinter you as it did Rularuu. You will be as Rularuu is now. For you, I think that is a fate worse than death."

"And the second reason?"

"I know of you as well, Cole. I knew your counterpart on my Earth, but I also know of you. I understand, as most will never understand, why you did what you did. You are an insane man, as I was once insane." Silos raised his hand as Cole started to speak "I won't argue the point, except to say I know your actions on Praetoria haunt you. I know the souls you tried to use haunt you. I know *she* haunts you. In time, you would realize the folly of your actions. Time we don't have."

Silos now turned to Cole. "You want to know it was all worth it. You want a legacy. You're willing to kill for it. I know you're willing to die for it. I know if I give you a chance to be the savior of humanity, you will take it."

Silos turned back to look out across the landscape. "You really have no choice." Silos did not need to see the look on Cole's face to know he had hit home.

"Tell me your plan."

Silos described his plan, or at least Cole's part in it. "This will not work" Cole said when he was finished.

"Of course it will work. If you do what is required."

Cole stared at Mender Silos and seemed to study his face for a long time. "On my world, Gerhardt Eisenstadt died an unknown maker of clocks and toys. It seems I was fortunate in that regard."

"I will take that as a compliment, Cole."

"You realize that even if your plan works, there's a problem. I will be busy using the power of the Well of the Furies and Rularuu to effect your plan. I will not be able to assist you in your battle with the Battalion. You may yet fail before I can bring this to a close. And even beyond that, you are beset with an enormous problem. The Battalion may yet come for you."

"Oh, I have an idea there."


...

What is this? See the end of my post here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=4426367


Part One: The Immortal Game



"You're insane. And coming from me, that's saying something."

The shadowy landscape, if you could call it that, made The Dream Doctor look even more mysterious, but Mender Silos had seen too much to be moved by such trivialities. But he made a mental note of it anyway, as he always did. Such theatricality could always be useful one day. Assuming there would be more days.

"I Must Concur With The Mender, As Much As It Pains Me To Do So. What You Propose Is Madness."

The voice of Prometheus sounded even more imposing than it normally was - no, not sounded. It *felt* more imposing. It didn't so much sound like it was coming from all directions, it sounded like it was always coming from the direction one focused on. It was always coming *directly at you*. Whether Prometheus intended to intimidate, this was one audience that would not be cowed.

"It is the only way."

The Dream Doctor had proposed this meeting, and its location. They were in Ouroboros, or at least a version of it. This was actually the piece of Ouroboros that lay within Dreamspace, a place where few could navigate and even fewer could locate this nexus of time, space, and consciousness. Prometheus would be able to meet here and Silos, The Doctor grudgingly conceded, would also have the means to find this place with only minor assistance. If his plan were to have any chance to succeed, The Dream Doctor would need help, and unfortunately these two were the best suited.

That did not mean they would be the most cooperative.

"My Guidance Has Led The Incarnates To Defeat Cole, It Will Lead Them To Defeat The Coming Storm."

"Your 'guidance' has brought humanity to the brink of defeat. I have seen this."

"How?" Mender Silos, the man once known as Lord Nemesis, the Great Manipulator and Schemer, spoke a little too soon. In the company of ordinary men, this would have gone unnoticed.

"So you know." The Dream Doctor was no ordinary man.

"What Do You Believe You Know" Prometheus said, although it did not sound like a question. It sounded like Prometheus almost challenged them to say something he could not dismiss as trivial.

The Dream Doctor ignored the implication. "The Battalion has begun preparing for their arrival. They have set the noose."

Prometheus glared, but did not speak. Mender Silos sensed Prometheus did not understand, and could not resist lording knowledge over the ordinarily inscrutable being. "I have tried to see what effect Cole's defeat has had upon the Coming Storm. However, not even my abilities allow me to see more than a few months ahead in time."

The Dream Doctor continued "They are aware of you, Prometheus. They are aware of your machinations. They are not concerned about your attempts to put up any resistance. They care only your interference could cost them their prize. They have surrounded Primal Earth in all directions with a barrier."

"Not just in space, but in time as well," Silos added.

"In space, in time, across dimensions. We are in the center of a bubble that traps us here. And the bubble is shrinking. The Battalion are herding us, ensuring we do not escape their grasp, so that all of the potential of the Wellspring is theirs to consume."

"It Matters Not. The Incarnates Will Prevail, The Battalion Will Be Defeated, And All Will Return To The Path I Have Laid Out."

"No, it won't. The defeat of Cole has weakened the Wellspring. The energy he once commanded has been dissipated."

"It Will Be Returned To The Well."

"Eventually, but not soon enough. When the Battalion arrives, the Incarnates will not have the strength to repel them."

"How do you know this?" Silos had already guessed, but he had to be sure.

"As I said, I have seen it."

"If We Are Corralled As You Claim, How Can You Have Seen Our Fate."

"The Battalion are conquerors, they are seekers and wielders of power, they are ravagers and consumers and destroyers" the Dream Doctor explained. But they are not dreamers. They have no power here. At least not yet. Dreamspace is still open to me, and through it I have seen the dreams of what is to come. The Battalion come, and the Incarnates fight, but in the end they are swept away. They fall heroically, but they fall nonetheless. In every version of every possible timeline, they fall."

"You're still crazy." Silos said, although it sounded less like he meant it, and more like he was trying to convince himself.

"We can still save our reality."

"By destroying it?"

"Again, I Must Concur With The Mender. You Propose Destroying Us To Save Us."

The plan the Dream Doctor had proposed to them was so shocking that at first neither Prometheus nor Silos could comment, probably the first and last time such an event would ever occur in all the multiverse. After Emperor Cole was defeated, The Dream Doctor set his mind upon a quandary. Cole was no longer a champion of the Well. His energy had been released back to the Well, where it could be tapped by the Incarnates who would attempt to defend his world. But it nagged upon him: what if instead of standing and fighting Cole had tried to escape? What if he had fled? Could he have stolen that energy and taken it with him? Perhaps the Wellspring would not allow him to do that. But still it puzzled him. The Wellspring did not control all incarnate power: it wasn't sentient in that respect. It was a concentration of potential and consciousness, but it wasn't an individual entity in that sense. It did not Dream. What if all the Incarnates fled Primal Earth? Would that deny their power to the Battalion? Could that be a way to at least slow them down? And why had none before our world tried that before?

And that's when he discovered it. Only one such as he could truly find it, although a Mender such as Silos would eventually detect it indirectly. The Barrier. The Battalion ensured no amount of potential escaped their rampage by surrounding it, encasing it in an ever contracting container. The human mind struggled to conceptualize what was happening. There would be no escape. Every trajectory would be blocked. Except one.

Dreamspace was still free of the Battalion's touch. Wells do not dream. The Battalion, beings empowered by countless Wellsprings of potential, use their power to make thought into reality. They hunger, they aspire, but they do not dream. They were so far removed from what they once were they could not even conceive of dreaming. And because of that, their power did not extend to Dreamspace.

And that's when The Dream Doctor conceived of The Plan. The Battalion had done most of the work. They had created a barrier from which all Incarnate potential could not escape out. The Dream Doctor would take that, and convert it into a barrier of Dreaming. It would be an impassable moat of Dreamspace through which nothing from the outside could enter without first entering Dreamspace. And that was anathema to the Battalion. His world would be saved.

The problem, of course, was the cost.

"Destroying is a strong word. I propose ... transformation."

"As grass is transformed within a cow."

"Don't be crude Silos. We will take the *potential* of the Well and use it to *actualize* our world within a protective shield."

"We'll be destroying reality and spitting it back out again."

"Do you have a better idea, Last Deceiver?"

Silos almost winced. The Dream Doctor knew more of Lord Nemesis' future and Mender Silos' past than he let on, if he knew of that epithet and the circumstances surrounding it. And in truth, Silos did not have a better plan.

"And how about you, 'Keeper' of the Flame?" The Dream Doctor was playing all his cards now, for there would not be another hand to play. He stressed the first word of that title, to prove he knew that which Prometheus had kept secret for so long. The Dream Doctor spent months learning all he could about these two "men" and the task ahead. He knew he could not really threaten either of them, but among such beings as they, knowledge was power. He needed to prove he was willing to play this out to the end.

"Suppose we agree to this. I assume you have a way to make it actually happen."

"I have the basics. But I need two things, which is why you are here. I will need someone with the ability to control Incarnate power. That is why you are here, Prometheus."

"And as for me?"

"You, Silos, I wish I could do without. But I need something only you can provide."

"And that is?"

The Dream Doctor smirked, and for the first time since the meeting began he looked right into the eyes of Silos. "I need a Nemesis plot."


...



Handy Dandy pointers to the parts posted in this thread:
** Part one, The Immortal Game, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=4426369
** Part two, The Kings Gambit, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...2&postcount=13
** Part three, Removing the Pin, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...6&postcount=15
** Part four, The Sacrificial Castle, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...4&postcount=33
** Part five, Endgame, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=37
** Part six, Destiny, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...1&postcount=47
** Part seven, Time's End, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=165
The last part will be posted tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest

I could go on forever.

This game has been a special one for me, and whatever happens in the future, it will always have a special place in my memories. As an MMO, as a game design, as a software implementation, it got practically everything wrong. Everything the players saw, and so much the players didn't see: so many errors, mistakes, failures of design. Fundamentally, it really got only one thing right, but its a thing virtually all other MMOs get wrong. It let us play the way we wanted to. Not always in every detail, and not always to the same degree we wanted, but we could look like what we wanted to look it, go where we wanted to go, see what we wanted to see, be who we wanted to be in the game. This is still something most MMO designers believe you simply cannot do and make a good game. They are all wrong, in a way they will never understand, and possibly will never learn. But we know better.

I've mostly said what needed to be said about the dev team in the many threads that have sprouted up since the shutdown announcement, but as with the game itself I think its important to state that none of them were perfect, in fact many of them were very flawed. I still think some didn't know how to add. But I think they all collectively believed not just in the game, but in we the players of the game. They believed we always deserved more than we were getting and tried to get us more. They believed we deserved to participate, to the extent they could allow, in the direction of the game. Until the day comes when an open source MMO springs to life, City of Heroes will be the example of a dev team and a playerbase working together to shepherd the development of a first-rate MMO. And I think in the final analysis, we did a pretty good job there.

I've played many MMOs since the release of City of Heroes, and I've seen the forums of every one of them. Compared to us, they are cavepeople with stone knives and bear skins. The collective community of players that over time played, investigated, tested, analyzed, and deconstructed the game and then educated the playerbase has been far and away the best, period. Only the spreadsheet jockeys in Eve Online compare analytically, and no game anywhere compares to the overall effort to analyze what is actually one of the most complex MMOs out there in terms of game mechanics. I'm very proud to be a part of that community that stretches all the way back to beta and all the way to the present day.

I'm not going to get all sappy with the goodbyes. And in fact, I'll probably become more active on other forums like the Titan Forums after the holidays. For those asking, I honestly don't know where I'll be next. I wouldn't have even predicted being here back when I first started playing: I thought this would be a nice couple month distraction when I rolled that first alt. I have lifetime subs to Champions Online and Star Trek Online, and with some of the devs moving to Cryptic I'll probably at least try those out again. A lot of people are strongly suggesting Secret World to me, and I did play some in the beta so I might go that route. But to be honest, its hard to imagine a game taking up my time and attention like City of Heroes. In the final analysis, I was here as much for you as for me. I liked playing the game, but I also liked contributing to this community, and that's not a role I see myself leaping into again soon.


As to the shut down itself. I wish the whole entire truth about the shutdown was public knowledge. It sucks knowing it was not inevitable, and yet also probably unavoidable. What I will say is this: this game was not a failure. This game did not have to end. This game could have been completely self-sufficient. The game, our developers, and our playerbase could have continued on indefinitely. There are no *real* numbers that charts to an inevitable demise at any future date. This game did not die: this game was killed.

I can't prove it of course, like many things over the years I've asked people to trust me when I've said them. So some people will reject this as being baseless, and some will reject it just because its me saying it. But for the rest of you, this is the straight truth: we did not need to die. We were not even close to death, or projected to die. The game you loved and the game I loved did everything it needed to do to succeed except to avoid falling into the crosshairs of idiots. Our game was a good game, good enough to be a commercial success. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They are wrong.


Lastly, I will just say that I've been working on something for the past couple of weeks with a couple of other players, and I still don't know if I can pull it off reasonably, but enough pieces are in place for me to at least make an attempt. Some time next week, if everything goes well, I'm going to try to pull off an end of game event run by the players for the players on the beta server. There are limits to what I can do there, but those limits aren't necessarily what you think. I have a story I've written up** that encapsulates (what I hope to be) the backstory of the event: its my take on The Last City of Heroes Story. Confession: I work with numbers and analysis every day. But what I actually enjoy doing is writing. I've simply never had the time given the work I did on the analysis side of the game to work on fanfiction. I thought the AE would provide an outlet for that, but the honest truth is that all the patching and breaking of arcs permanently damaged my enthusiasm for writing in the AE. Outside of those early AE attempts, this will be my first, and possibly last, actual City of Heroes story in writing. I hope you like it.

So start copying characters to beta, and install the beta client if you haven't done so yet. If we pull this off, this can and will only happen on beta.


I wish I could go on forever.




** Part one, The Immortal Game, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=4426369
** Part two, The Kings Gambit, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...2&postcount=13
** Part three, Removing the Pin, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...6&postcount=15
** Part four, The Sacrificial Castle, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...4&postcount=33
** Part five, Endgame, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=37
** Part six, Destiny, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...1&postcount=47
** Part seven, Time's End, is posted here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=165
The last part will be posted tonight or tomorrow morning.