We spent around ten minutes checking every inch of this god damn tower for a way out. First floor to fifth, up and down every nooks and crevices of it.

The banquet hall was still dimly lit by that same orange hue bleeding from beneath the door. The air was heavy with that woody, moldy scent of rotting tables and wet ash.

I tried the fireplace, poking at the ashes for anything hidden underneath. Yet there was just splinters, soot, and a bone that looked too big to belong to a chicken…

I tried the wooden door, but we've established that it achieved nothing.

The second floor, where Rina is searching, was still cold and quiet. The air stank faintly of old perfume and dead flowers.

The furniture barely moved when I pushed them away, heavier than necessary, and the sheets on Worsetingale's bed felt rather… Cold, quite cold for some reason.

The third floor, where we'd seen the storage barrels and alchemy stuff, this and the 4th floor was the most suspicious, so naturally I spent quite a bit of time on these two.

I remember passing my finger along a glass vial, the dust was thick enough to smudge, which was another discreprancy in my book, considering how the other floors felt brand new. Compounded upon that was when Rina muttered something about "the residue being too recent," which didn't make sense.

Nothing of note, not even a hint or a lever.

Was this… Just, a really well thought out trap?

The fourth floor was… a mess, but the interesting kind of mess.

If Worsetingale was half as brilliant as the legends made him out to be, then this was the exact place where that brilliance died.

I could taste something bitter and metallic, like burnt mana crystals and copper wiring.

At the far end of the room, there were something I didn't notice before, a barrel filled with shattered conduits: broken staves, bent rings, goggles?

Some kind of blue powder covered every item in that said barrel, I think it used to be crushed gemstones, but now it just looked like glowing sand.

I dusted my hand of those powder, not wanting to cross contaminate shits, and took a step back, when I felt myself bumping into a tall brass device covered in spiraling coils and dangling gemstones.

Some kind of magic construction, maybe? This is ridiculous… I don't ever remember anything like this, so this wasn't in the Early Access nor the PC version.

"Nothing over here." Rina said, putting down some kind of seer globe, "You?"

"Nothing…" I shook my head.

Finally, we climbed to the fifth floor, the roof… Yet, nothing was new. Only cobblestones, moss, broken bowstring, scattered arrows, maybe a hint of wind breezing through the silence.

Rina seemed to be disappointed, as without another word, she started descending the stairs.

But then! I thought of something.

I hastily removed my right gauntlet and paddings to look at my bare arm, and I was right. Indeed, there was a bracelet there.

The Bracelet of Eternal Friendship was still there, the item that let me keep an eye on my stupid little friend from across the world. This item would allow me to know where they are, even in dungeons, even ten of thousands of nautical miles away.

…

It was supposed to, at least.

I turned my wrist, frowning, tapping the screen like an idiot.

"Where is he? Why isn't he showing up?" I muttered. "He's supposed to…"

"She's supposed to…"

…

Who was I even looking for?

I checked my friend list, all were offline. So I guess that explains it… They logged off after waiting for me for too long.

Good friends.

I made my way back down through the floors. To the fourth, third, and then finally, second floor, where Rina was staying. She was lying flat on the wizard's bed, staring at the ceiling like a corpse

"What are you doing?" I snapped. "We need to figure this out! Do you not want to leave?"

"Do you know when did we entered the tower of Worsetingale, Cory?" She asked me, her voice cracking.

"What?" I replied.

"It was 18:31:20, could be five seconds late or ten seconds early, I often check the time just to see if it's my time to log off. But, around that bush."

"WHAT?" I got more aggressive this time, frustrated by her cryptic talking. I've already got Ann and Tanya to talk cryptically to me, no need for this strange woman, too.

"Just…" she murmured. "Check the time, Cory."

I frowned and pulled open the UI menu, the interactive menu that every players access to open the inventory, check quest, their own stats, logging out, etc.

There was an option to check the time clock.

18:31:22

I waited for the last digit to move to three.

After five seconds, it did not update.

"... Holy fuck." I said.

"Language." Rina finally turned her head, eyes dull and tired.

"That's impossible, we've been here for like… What, fucking- like, I don't know! twenty, thirty minutes?"

"Whatever the case is, you saw that the clock isn't moving." Rina she sat up, her light sleeveless faintly clinking. "Go throw something off the roof."

"What?"

"I did it earlier when you weren't there, just trust me."

With her amazing persuasion skills, I did as asked.

Up to the fifth floor again, through the same steps, same cobblestones, same silence.

I picked up a small piece of arrow that was broken in half, too small to use for an attack and held it out over the edge.

I dropped it.

The moment it left my hand, it fell to what I think is the 4th or 3rd floor, before completely disintegrating into thin air.

I stared at the edge, my stomach tightening as my hands started shaking. I could feel my blood boiling up at that moment.

But then… I wanted to know.

So I climbed up the parapet and took a deep breath.

I looked up to the skies, begging for a blessing, and took a step forward onto nothing.

The sharp wind rushed in my ears.

Have you ever had that dream where you would be deep in your slumbers, yet, a dream suddenly intrudes, you found yourself high up in the sky, falling down.

And then you would have a heart attack and got back up, drenched in sweats and eyes wide.

That's exactly what I felt.

And then I was back on the roof, exactly where I jumped from.

I didn't even feel anything, just, in a blink, and I didn't even blink, I kept my eyes opened wide.

So, I did it again.

Same result.

By the third time, I could feel tears prickling the corner of my eyes.

I stumbled back down to the second floor. Rina hadn't moved. She looked at me like she already knew… Perhaps she didn't know about the committing suicide part, but definitely the disappearing item act part.

"So…" I swallowed hard. "What the fuck is happening?"

"Have you read those dystopian cliché where someone gets trapped inside a simulation for a hundred years, and in the real world it's been less than a second? As a way to imprison people and whatnot." She swung her legs off the bed, leaning forward.

"Stop talking in riddle, PLEASE!" I slammed my hand against the stairs.

"...Think about it, Cory. What if time outside this tower… Both the people in game, and the people in real life, isn't moving? No, I phrased that wrong… More like, what if the moment we entered this tower, our consciousness stopped at a singular moment in time?"

"That's insane, jesus fuck." I rubbed my temple, "I guess… Since Darkmoon Adventure VR already fucked with our perception of reality by giving us realistic physics and interactions with just a pair of glasses and a pod to play video games, I guess that's possible… But like, why, we're only level 50!"

She didn't answer.

"..." I took a deep breath, "So you're suggesting this tower's like a… magical time bubble?"

"A good term is a consciousness trap, and if I actually got infinite time, I believe I could start catching up on some books…"

Rina seemed rather chill about this for some fucking reason? God, I want to stab this bitch so bad.

That phrase stuck in my head like a hook.

"I don't think the Sonder Interactive group would turn their flagship MMORPG into a psychological torture chamber?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed as Rina scooted aside, I pressed my palm against my forehead.

"So what does that mean? We're? What if it never does?" I asked.

"Then we'll be here," Rina said softly with a smile, "until the heat death of the universe. And when our relatives found us unable to log out and get back to real life, Sonders Interactive gets sue and shut down, we'll be in this place until our brain official shut down… Or never, if our consciousness' already uploaded."

Her voice cracked at the last part, and that made it worse.

"But…" Rina lay back down, her eyes met mine. "I think it's already too late for us to do anything."

…

... I just stared at her, thinking deeply.

…

... She closed her eyes, resting.

...

"Or I can just, like- fucking, log out of the game? Have you try doing that you creep?"

It took a lot of courage and context for someone like me to call another woman "creep". But in this context, I feel like I am justified.

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