The Last Feast

Thoth found her the next morning with a request stranger than most of his usual queries.

"I require a large bowl," he said. "And freshwater. I intend to test whether the mermaids can tolerate it before we attempt anything further."

They carried a wide ceramic basin down to the shallows together, filled it from a nearby stream, and Thoth explained the request to the small cluster of mermaids who'd gathered, curious, at the water's edge. One of the mermaids who had asked about the rivers weeks earlier volunteered without hesitation, lowering her face carefully into the bowl.

They waited in silence.

She lifted her head a moment later, blinked twice, and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.

"...First hypothesis confirmed," Thoth said.

The second test took them to the river mouth itself, where fresh water met salt in a slow, churning gradient. The same mermaid swam out into it, testing the boundary, drifting deeper as the water grew steadily less salty around her. She surfaced grinning, gave another thumbs up, and said something rapid and excited that sent several of the others into visible debate.

"She would like to bring the others who wish to travel inland," Thoth translated.

She left, and returned a short while later with eight more, the whole group practically vibrating with anticipation.

They went upstream together after that, Arista riding on Thoth's back while he flew low over the water, the mermaids keeping pace below, weaving between rocks and shallows with obvious delight, their eyes wide at every new bend the river revealed.

They found the farmer a few bends later, standing knee-deep in the shallows, washing a basket of vegetables with the unhurried patience of someone who'd done this exact chore a thousand times before.

He looked up first at the sound of wings, which was reason enough on its own to stop what he was doing. Then he saw the first mermaid surface. Then another. Then seven more after that.

The basket slipped from his hands and hit the water, vegetables scattering across the current.

The mermaids seemed equally fascinated, several of them surfacing to stare at this ordinary human, calmly standing in their river, doing something with his hands they'd never once seen anyone do before.

One of them said something, quick and curious, directed at the farmer, who understood absolutely none of it.

Thoth landed on the bank a moment later, close enough to translate without actually entering the water himself, and the farmer's expression shifted from confusion to something closer to open disbelief.

"She is asking what you are growing," Thoth said.

The farmer stared at him for a long moment before finding his voice, fishing his basket back out of the current as he answered. "...Potatoes."

Thoth relayed this. The mermaid's expression suggested the word meant absolutely nothing to her.

"She is asking if she may have one."

The farmer glanced between the mermaid and the dragon apparently translating for her, seemed to decide this was simply the kind of day he was having now, and pulled a potato free, tossing it toward the river.

She caught it with both hands, and bit straight into it before Arista could warn her.

Her entire face puckered.

"She says it is terrible," Thoth reported.

The farmer burst out laughing.

"You're supposed to cook it!" Arista called.

Thoth translated. The mermaid looked from the potato, to Arista, then back to the farmer, saying something else.

"...She is asking what 'cooking' is."

"What happens when a mermaid tries to swim through the boiling ring?" Arista offered.

Thoth relayed the comparison. The mermaid's eyes went wide.

"She understands."

"That. But considerably less."

The farmer, apparently deciding the situation had grown more complicated than any single potato deserved, reached into a different basket instead, tossing a pear toward the river. The mermaid caught it, eyeing it with open suspicion.

"You can eat that one as it is," the farmer offered.

She took a cautious bite. Her eyes widened. A second bite followed immediately, then a third, juice running down her chin.

Several of the other mermaids began talking at once, pressing closer.

"They would also like pears," Thoth said.

The farmer, laughing now, began tossing pears into the river one after another, while further downstream, one younger mermaid had drifted toward the bank entirely, staring up at something in the adjacent field.

A cow stood at the fence line, chewing placidly, staring back with the specific, total absence of thought that only livestock could truly achieve. Neither showed any sign of breaking first.

Arista laughed, leaning back against Thoth's warm plating. No quest had sent them here, and nothing about this afternoon would matter beyond the handful of people living through it. It was, she thought, possibly her favorite thing she'd done in her time here.

"...We should come back," she said. "Bring more of them."

"I had already planned to," Thoth said. "I told the children I would show them, rather than simply describe it."

The remaining weeks passed quickly after that. She kept her promised return visits, one more afternoon with Sorrel's layered beds, one more evening at Gorthruk's forge, one more swim with Selen and Squishy before the pilgrims began their journey home. She and Thoth returned to the river twice more, the farmer growing steadily less startled each time a dragon landed on his bank.

Then, with no warning that felt adequate for it, only one day remained.

She returned to the boat that final evening to find it already transformed for the occasion, the rear deck cleared entirely, a single long table stretching its full width, lanterns strung between the rigging overhead, warm light spilling across water lapping gently at the hull below.

Everyone came.

Petrov arrived despite his seasickness, pale and faintly green, raising a toast anyway. "I wouldn't miss this for the world," he said, "not even if it means throwing up."

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Gorthruk had made the long journey from the Republic, presenting her with a small, hand-forged token before the feast properly began. Sorrel had delivered a woven basket of flowers from the bio-domes herself, down at the harbor just before they set sail, pressing it into Arista's hands before returning to her own people.

Beelzebub arrived precisely on schedule, human-passing form settled among the gathered crowd, the woven mithril band at his collar.

"I would not have missed this," he said, settling beside her.

Michael arrived shortly after, six wings folding carefully to avoid disturbing the lanterns.

Ferrus and several of the Hive's crew had made the journey aboard a smaller launch, already trading stories with Nettle's guild members. The Hive itself rode at anchor alongside, close enough that Thoth, settled near the rail, could still hold a conversation with it across the gap of open water.

Selen surfaced alongside the hull just as the last lanterns were lit, resting both arms against the boat's side, close enough to join the conversation from the water itself. Beside her, Squishy's rings glowed soft in the darkening water.

Among the players, the knowledge sat heavier, unspoken, that this wasn't simply a farewell to one friend leaving, but the last night any of them would spend in this world at all. Most of the NPCs gathered knew only that they were saying goodbye to Arista, one more goodbye among the many she'd already given. Thoth and Beelzebub alone carried the fuller weight of it, quiet in a way neither bothered explaining to the other.

Bram and Nettle sat close together. Claire, present and steady, had made her own peace with her decision not to move to the sequel.

Arista leaned over the railing at one point, offering a generous cut of meat down toward the water, and Squishy accepted it carefully between two tentacles before, without warning, lifting Selen clean out of the water beside him, holding her up level with the deck. She snatched a full glass of something strong from the nearest hand, downed it in a single, practiced motion, and let him lower her back beneath the surface, laughing the whole way down.

They ate together, the same rich feast that had once celebrated Colm, laughter and stories flowing easily. Bram told the story of Gorthruk's dollhouse for the newcomers' benefit, the pink-headed figure getting a bigger laugh with every retelling.

"You're probably exaggerating how terrible your own figure looked," Colm said, grinning at Bram.

"I'm not exaggerating anything. Gorthruk's craftsmanship speaks for itself. No nose. None."

Gorthruk set down his fork slowly. "Have you forgotten what happened the last time you broke your word to keep your mouth shut about my hobby?"

Bram's grin faltered, something flickering across his face that looked distinctly like the memory of a two-hour lecture. Then he laughed anyway.

"Worth it," he said.

Gorthruk raised his glass, the beginning of a smile tugging at his mouth. "As long as you remember."

Ferrus leaned toward Nettle, watching the exchange with open curiosity. "Is this normal? For your crew?"

"Depends on the night," Nettle said. "Tonight it's sentimental chaos. Last week it was just chaos."

"I find I prefer this version," Ferrus said.

Petrov raised his glass again, visibly fighting his own stomach to do it. "To whoever decided a sailing feast was appropriate for someone this prone to seasickness."

"You could have said no," Claire pointed out.

"And miss this? Never." He drank, grimaced, and set the glass down with great care. "Worth it."

Nettle recounted Saturnus's fruit basket with exaggerated detail, drawing genuine laughter even from Beelzebub, who admitted he'd heard rumors of the Consortium's new, friendlier posture and hadn't quite believed them until now.

"He sent flowers too," Nettle added. "I'm framing the card."

"You said that about the fruit basket already," Bram said.

"I'm framing multiple things. Sue me."

The Hive's hull hummed low across the water, several of its voices clearly engaged in conversation with Thoth, who leaned against the rail to listen.

"Query," Thoth said, without preamble. "When choosing a new destination, what governs the decision? Efficiency, as Captain Ferrus described? Or something else?"

"Efficiency, primarily," one of the Hive's voices answered. "Though not exclusively. Curiosity has begun weighing more heavily than it once did."

"Do you consider yourselves a ship? Or a collection of golem cores that happen to form one?"

"Both," came the answer, several voices overlapping in agreement. "We have stopped finding the distinction useful."

"...And you?" the Hive asked. "Do you consider yourself a golem? Or a dragon?"

Thoth's dish tilted, processing the question with evident care. "Neither, precisely. I cannot exactly quantify what I currently am. I am Thoth. That has proven acceptable."

The Hive's voices pulsed once, something like approval rippling through the overlapping chorus. "...That is a reasonable classification."

"I have found it sufficient," Thoth agreed.

Petrov proposed toast after toast after that, each one more sentimental than the last, until his own composure finally cracked somewhere around the fourth, voice catching mid-sentence, the whole table dissolving into easy, overlapping laughter at his expense.

Arista sat at the center of it, surrounded by three years' worth of friendship, humans, demons, dwarves, elves, a golem captain with a magnificently welded mustache, a distributed hive intelligence humming nearby, an ancient Seraphim fully relaxed, a mechanical dragon who'd taught her more about meaning than she'd ever expected to learn from a discarded core.

Bram leaned over. "...Can I ask you something? Been meaning to ask for a while, honestly, and never quite got around to it."

"Go ahead."

"You needed a level 100 hard-mode character to even unlock Ultimate mode, right? That was the requirement. So what were you, before you were Strawberry?"

Arista laughed softly. "...Artemis. An Elven Ranger. Six months in, level 100 fresh on my screen, sitting in a guild hall far more elegant than anything I ever built for myself later." She shook her head, half-fond, half-embarrassed. "There was this noble NPC who used to compliment my form after every single dungeon. Beautifully executed, precisely the form expected of a true archer, every single time, like I was a show pony."

"Sounds thrilling," Bram said.

"That's exactly the problem. It was. Objectively. Good guildmates, beautiful dungeons, generous loot. Respected, exactly the kind of player everyone wanted on their team. I just never felt like myself doing it."

"...So you picked the hardest possible difficulty, in the least glamorous race, with a class that didn't even have a pickaxe recipe," Bram said, dry.

"When you put it that way, it sounds like a poor decision."

"It sounds like exactly the decision I'd expect from you."

"If I'd stayed with Artemis, I never would have met any of you," she said, her voice quiet.

Nobody at the table spoke for a moment.

"...No regrets, then," Bram said.

"None," Arista said. "Not a single one."

She stood eventually, the whole deck quieting to listen.

"Three years ago, I couldn't even find a recipe for a pickaxe," she said. "This is my last day here, and I've built more than I ever imagined possible. Not just tunnels and railways and roller coasters, but this. All of you."

She looked around the table, Selen, Squishy's rings glowing steady in the water, Gorthruk, the basket of flowers Sorrel had left with her, Beelzebub, Thoth.

"Thank you," she said. "For letting a stubborn demon blacksmith build her way into all your lives, and for building your way just as deeply into mine."

"To Strawberry," Beelzebub said, raising his glass. "Who taught an ancient Lord what it feels like to be embraced."

"To Strawberry," Michael echoed, six wings settling warm and still. "Who gave an ancient being something genuinely new."

"To Strawberry," Thoth said. "Whose song, however finite, was genuinely worth playing."

The toast carried around the rest of the deck after that, voice after voice, out across the water where Squishy's rings pulsed once in wordless agreement.

The hours slipped by after that, slower, quieter, until the lanterns burned low and Nettle finally steered them back toward the docks. The guests departed there one by one, each goodbye a little longer than the last.

By the time only the crew remained, the countdown Arista hadn't let herself check all evening read fifteen minutes left.

[Time Until Eternal Horizon 2.0: 0 Days, 0 Hours, 15 Minutes!!]

She sat with the others in silence, watching the number, until midnight arrived and the world simply, quietly stopped.

[Eternal Horizon — Thank You for Playing]

The pod hissed open above her, and the real world resolved slowly: her bedroom, dark, the clock on her desk reading a few minutes past midnight. She lay there a while, feeling the strange, familiar weight of her own actual body after so many hours spent as someone else entirely.

More than three years as Strawberry, she thought.

She'd been sixteen when she first logged in as Strawberry, restless and curious, wanting nothing more complicated than to dig a hole and see what happened. She was nearly twenty now, having built railways, roller coasters, and a dome over a drowned city, having formed relationships she would carry with her for the rest of her actual life.

She slept eventually.

The envelope was still sitting on her desk the next morning, sealed and addressed, exactly where she'd left it days earlier.

Averell Institute of Technology (AIT)

Engineering, with a focus on mechanical and structural design, the same field she'd spent the last three years obsessively teaching herself inside a game nobody had expected her to take quite this seriously.

She picked it up, turned it over once in her hands, and made her way downstairs before she could talk herself out of it, sliding it into the mailbox just as the mail truck rounded the corner of the street outside.

I built a pickaxe because nobody gave me the recipe, she thought. I don't know exactly what I'll build next. But I know, now, that I actually can.

Somewhere, a world she'd loved deeply now sat permanently dark. A pickaxe forged from nothing. A railway connecting five kingdoms. A pillow the size of a small house, built for a curious, gentle god. None of it existed anymore, except in memory.

She went back inside, and began the rest of her life.