THE UNDERBUILD: LEGACY

The dead man’s backpack was on the other side of a wall that wasn’t supposed to exist. Rook checked the map again. Blue line: him. Yellow diamond: recovery target.

Between them, according to the map, was six meters of empty corridor. Between them, according to his eyes, was a wall built from black stone blocks, each one wet with the slow green seep of the Sable Ward. He put his palm against it. Solid.

“That’s inconvenient.”

Mina’s voice came through his party channel.

“What is?”

“The game has developed architecture.”

“Again?”

“Unscheduled architecture.”

“Less funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

That bought him three seconds of silence. Rook stepped back and looked up. The wall climbed twenty feet to the broken ceiling of what had once been a customs house. Beyond the gap overhead, rain fell through a violet evening sky. Farther east, beyond the drowned roofs, the towers of Lume were beginning to light one window at a time. Vastion could be annoyingly beautiful when it was trying to kill you.

A bell chimed in the corner of his vision.

RECOVERY CONTRACT

Client: Hobb_77

Target: Personal Death Cache

Expiration: 19:46

Reward on successful recovery: 31 silver

Contractor share: 40%

With less than half an hour on the contract, Rook asked Mina to warn Hobb that access to the cache was blocked. She pointed out that telling a client his property was trapped in a wall would not inspire confidence. Rook suggested she tell him he was still working.

“You haven’t moved in two minutes.”

He was trying to decide whether that counted as progress when the party channel clicked. Mina had put the client through.

Hobb had been waiting for a status update. He started with the glaive, moved on to his Harrow Ring, and seemed about to recite the entire manifest. Rook spared him the trouble: he knew about the poison kit, the river pearls, the forty-six silver, the coat Hobb’s girlfriend had made, and the smoked eels. The man went quiet at the mention of the coat.

“They’re good eels,” Hobb said at last.

The contract gave him nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds; the recovery marker hadn’t moved at all.

“Can you get it?” Hobb asked.

“Probably. I’ll call when I have it.”

Hobb began to say something else, but Mina removed him from the channel.

“You’re terrible with customers,” she said.

“He likes me.”

“He hired you because the official recovery service quoted him eleven dollars.”

“And I charged him twelve silver.”

“You understand that twelve silver is worth less than eleven dollars.”

“That’s why people like me.”

Another chime. This one was louder. Rook glanced toward the archway behind him. Three red dots had appeared on the minimap.

“Company.”

“Players?”

“Worse.”

The first mire hound came around the corner at a run. It looked as if somebody had built a greyhound from reeds, black mud and bad intentions. Its shoulders reached Rook’s waist. Water streamed from its narrow skull. A yellow nameplate appeared over it. Drowned Mire Hound — Lv. 21 Two more followed.

Rook drew his short sword. The lead hound jumped. He didn’t.

That was the difference between level nineteen and spending an afternoon walking back from a resurrection shrine. He waited until its forelegs left the floor, stepped half a pace right and drove the sword upward behind its ribs.

Critical Hit — 184

Not enough. The hound twisted in the air and caught his sleeve with one claw.

-47 HP

Rook yanked his arm free, planted a boot against the creature’s flank and kicked it toward the second hound. They collided.

The third didn’t care. It hit him from the side. His shoulder struck stone.

-83 HP

“Ow.”

Rook rolled out from beneath the hound’s jaws. His stamina was already below half, and Mina was telling him he had turned away from the cache. He knew. North was behind him; the only stairwell he could use without getting pinned against the wall was ahead.

Humanoid opponents had shoulders, hips, habits, and usually some desire to avoid being stabbed. Mire hounds had four legs and no professional boundaries. He ran.

The hounds followed. Of course they followed. He hit the first broken stair, the second, then planted one foot on the banister post and vaulted the missing section. The hounds tried to take the same route.

The first made it. The second clipped the masonry. The third went through the rotten banister entirely and disappeared into the room below in a spectacular explosion of old timber.

Environmental Damage — 312

“One,” Rook said.

“Did you just throw a dog down a staircase?”

“It was not a dog.”

“It had four legs.”

“So does a table.”

The remaining two were already climbing. Rook backed along the upper gallery. There.

A rusted iron lamp bracket protruded from the wall. He waited. The faster hound leapt. Rook ducked.

Its body sailed over him, struck the bracket, twisted and landed badly. Before it recovered he drove his blade twice into the soft seam beneath its jaw. 143 167

The creature collapsed into black water and reeds. A small blue message floated past. Drowned Mire Hound defeated.

+126 XP

Level 19 — 41,786 / 44,000 XP

Mina announced the shortfall: 2,214 XP. Rook said he could do his own subtraction.

“You told me forty-one minus seventeen was thirty-six yesterday.”

“Did we get out of the dungeon?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was thirty-six.”

The last hound came up the stairs. Rook had lost sight of it. It charged.

He caught the movement in the reflection of a cracked window. Rook turned, lifted his left arm and deliberately let the animal bite the leather guard around his forearm.

-61 HP

Its jaws locked.

He drove his sword through its eye. The hound went rigid.

Critical Hit — 392

Drowned Mire Hound defeated.

+131 XP

A moment later another message appeared. Drowned Mire Hound defeated by environmental damage.

+84 XP

Rook wiped his sword on the dead hound’s flank.

Level 19 — 42,001 / 44,000 XP

He needed 1,999 XP now. Mina recognized the number at once, and Rook could hear how much pleasure she took in it. She had barely started to suggest buying an XP pack when the store opened a promotional window across his view.

The offer appeared almost on cue. A gold-edged window opened in the middle of Rook’s vision.

YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!

Reach Level 20 faster with the Adventurer Momentum Bundle.

+50% Combat XP — 6 hours

+50% Quest XP — 6 hours

1× Resurrection Ward

5× Greater Recovery Tonics

$7.99 Rook dismissed it.

Rook dismissed the offer. Mina pointed out that buying one of the packs he complained about would save him hours.

“If I bought every pack I complained about, I’d have to move into the headset.”

“You practically live there now.”

“Rent is cheaper.”

“Rent is cheaper,” he told her, which made Mina laugh despite herself.

He took a healing tonic from his belt and drank half. The potion tasted of sour cherries. That was unnecessary. Nobody needed simulated flavor in a digital healing item, especially one that tasted as if the cherries resented being involved. His health crawled upward. Voices rose outside, too many to be a party of players.

Rook crossed to the broken window. Three streets below, a caravan was racing along the flooded avenue. Six broad-backed dray beasts pulled two wagons through water almost to their knees. NPC guards ran alongside them, shouting at pedestrians. Behind the caravan came a wall of river water, brown with silt.

Rook recognized the West Weir event. Mina asked whether he was in the flood path. He wasn’t yet, though he could already see how little time the lower ward had left.

A horn sounded across the district. The game dimmed the edges of his vision.

REGIONAL EVENT

THE WEST WEIR HAS BROKEN

Help evacuate the Sable Ward before the lower canals flood.

Time remaining: 08:00

Available objectives nearby:

— Escort civilians to higher ground

— Defend evacuation routes

— Recover lost supplies

— Assist the Riverwatch courier

Event rewards scaled with contribution. Rook’s attention found the Riverwatch courier objective and its unclaimed 750 XP, almost enough to make up the shortfall to level twenty.

Mina knew that silence. He had an unfinished recovery contract and fewer than nineteen minutes; she argued that chasing a courier was irresponsible even by his standards. He said the courier lay along his route. They both knew how unreliable that claim was.

Rook vaulted the gallery rail, landed on a rain-heavy awning, and slid into the street. Mina was still telling him he had a problem with level nineteen when his boots hit the water.

The flood alarm was bringing the district to life. Shopkeepers dragged crates upstairs. An old NPC woman stood in the doorway of a bakery arguing with a Riverwatch guard over whether her oven counted as essential property. Two children ran past carrying a cage containing something with six blue wings. Above them, players arrived by considerably more dignified means.

A white griffin swept over the rooftops. Its rider wore silver armor that left a trail of sparks in the rain. A second player descended on a floating black disc. Three more materialized beside the evacuation plaza in the pale flare of a premium transit beacon. Rook ran.

The player on the griffin touched down ten yards ahead of him. A guild tag appeared. [GILDED] Vaelion — Lv. 61

The griffin folded its wings. Vaelion looked at Rook. Then at Rook’s boots. Rook knew what he was seeing. Standard leather. Rare-grade belt. One decent sword. No mount. No seasonal aura.

No prestige frame around the name. The visual equivalent of checking somebody’s shoes before deciding whether they belonged in the restaurant.

Vaelion brought his griffin down in the middle of the street and took in Rook’s inexpensive leather gear, the absence of a mount, and the sword that was good enough but not impressive. His Gilded party was clearing the event, he explained. They wanted the courier objective left alone because of the contribution pool.

“Then you’d better get there first,” Rook said.

Vaelion swore as he turned his mount. The griffin could easily outrun a level-nineteen Runner in a straight line. Rook had not intended to run in a straight line. He cut into an alley and headed for the locked courtyard gate.

“You’re competing with Gilded now?” Mina asked.

“Apparently.”

The alley ended at a locked courtyard gate. Rook didn’t slow.

He put one boot on a rain barrel, the other against the wall, caught the iron top of the gate and swung over.

Agility check successful.

He landed badly enough to feel it in one ankle, cut through a laundry yard and emerged onto Canal Street. The Riverwatch courier was fifty yards ahead. So was Vaelion. The griffin descended. The courier waved both arms.

“Here!”

Vaelion landed beside him. Rook slowed.

“Well,” Mina said. “That was fun.”

Then the courier ignored Vaelion. He pointed straight at Rook.

“You!”

Vaelion turned. Rook did too, mostly to make sure there wasn’t another underfunded level nineteen behind him. The courier limped toward him.

“Bridge Rat! Thank the drowned saints.”

Rook remembered him. Not immediately. Then the man’s crooked nose did it. Three months ago. A side quest near Low Marrow Bridge. Smugglers, stolen tax seals and a goat that had contributed far more to the conclusion than anyone involved liked to admit.

“Sergeant Pell?”

“Still owe you a drink.”

“You owe me two.”

“Then don’t let me drown.”

A quest window opened.

AN OLD DEBT

Sergeant Pell of the Riverwatch remembers your assistance at Low Marrow Bridge.

Pell is carrying revised floodgate orders to Captain Sen at North Lock. The lower canal route has failed. Deliver Pell safely to North Lock.

Reward: 900 XP

18 silver

Riverwatch Reputation +35

Relationship modifier: Old Debt Bonus reward available. Rook accepted.

Vaelion stared at the two of them.

“What the hell?”

Pell looked at him.

“Who are you?”

“I’m here for the event.”

“Lovely.”

Pell handed Rook a waterproof dispatch case.

“North Lock. Quickly.”

Rook grinned at Vaelion.

“Contribution pool.”

Then he ran.

“That,” Mina said, “was childish.”

“Yes.”

They reached North Lock with forty-two seconds remaining, after a route that had nearly killed Pell twice and Rook once.

A Gilded mage dropped an ice wall across Canal Street to redirect the flood, accidentally redirected it through a textile market instead, and received an achievement for saving forty-three NPCs while six merchants screamed about inventory loss. Rook used the collapsing roof of a dye shop as a bridge. Pell objected to this at considerable length.

When they finally reached the lock tower, the water behind them was carrying barrels, market stalls and one extremely determined chicken down the avenue. Captain Sen dragged Pell through the door.

“You took your time.”

“I brought your orders,” Pell said.

“You brought half the river.”

“Complain to him.”

He pointed at Rook. Captain Sen looked at Rook’s soaked clothes. Then at the dispatch case.

“Still dry?”

Rook handed it over. She cracked the seal. Inside, the papers were dry. The system chimed.

AN OLD DEBT — COMPLETE

Base Reward: +900 XP

Speed Bonus: +180 XP

Dispatch Preserved: +90 XP

Riverwatch Reputation: +35

Total: +1,170 XP Rook inhaled.

Level 19 — 43,171 / 44,000 XP

Mina worked out the remaining XP before he did: eight hundred twenty-nine. She laughed so hard he had to turn down the channel volume. Rook had risked his contract, outrun a guild leader, and delivered Pell alive, and the game had contrived to leave him at level nineteen.

Pell, who had gone back to watching Captain Sen unfold the dispatch, asked whether he still did recovery jobs. The sergeant had expected him to move on to something more respectable by now. Rook objected that it was difficult to move on without gaining levels.

“You were sixteen when we met,” Pell said. “Three levels isn’t nothing.”

Rook had been about to laugh at him. Instead he looked at the guard’s battered cuffs and crooked nose. Pell had remembered the bridge, and he seemed pleased to see Rook again.

Mina once said the developers had discovered something more addictive than a world worth saving: one that noticed when you came back. It was why people put up with the shop.

The contract timer flashed. 11:04

“Oh.”

Mina snorted.

“Your eels.”

Rook ran. The wall was still there. That would have been reassuring if it had been the correct wall. Rook returned to the abandoned customs house with four minutes and twelve seconds remaining.

He had killed two canal leeches on the way.

+73 XP

+68 XP

Then a drowned customs clerk staggered from behind a collapsed desk. Level twenty-two.

Rook didn’t have time. He kicked the creature into the flooded inspection pit and dropped a stone ledger cabinet on it.

Improvised Kill

+311 XP

He barely saw the message. He was sprinting.

The customs house appeared. He crossed the ground floor, vaulted the broken counter, ran up the stair and reached the black wall.

Level 19 — 43,623 / 44,000 XP

Three hundred seventy-seven. Later. The yellow marker pulsed. Hobb’s death cache was still six meters away. 03:21

Rook put both hands against the wall.

Mina went through the usual options while he tested the wall: break it, reach the cache through the collapsed roof, try the flooded foundation, circle the building. Rook had already done all of them. The stone was environment-locked, the instance boundary had shifted, and he could not reach the target.

She recommended aborting. Twelve silver would not cover a second death penalty or another round of durability repairs, and Hobb could at least replace the eels.

“Give me a minute,” Rook said.

Mina reminded him he had three. He opened the basic recovery interface instead of arguing.

He opened his recovery interface. The plain tables looked as though they belonged in the support department.

That was because the Recovery Contractor tools had originally been designed for moderators and automated support. Vastion had later opened a stripped-down version to players and, naturally, charged for advanced licenses. Rook had the basic one.

RECOVERY SCAN

Target: Hobb_77 Personal Death Cache

Last valid position: X 11844.71

Y -308.22

Z 77.04

Current position: Unavailable Path state: ORPHANED That was new.

ORPHANED wasn’t a status Rook had ever seen on an ordinary recovery job. Mina asked for a screenshot, and he sent one while keeping an eye on the contract timer. She took a little longer than usual to answer.

“That’s server-side,” she said. “You shouldn’t even be seeing that field.”

Rook expanded the path state. Another field appeared. Parent geometry unavailable in current build.

Current Build: 18.4.2

Last valid parent:

The line beneath it was blank.

Then it flickered.

BUILD 9.3.11

Rook stared.

Mina read 9.3.11 from his screenshot and started checking archived versions. The numbers meant nothing to Rook except that they were very old. While the timer slipped below two minutes, something vibrated through the wall beneath his palm, like heavy machinery starting beyond the stone.

His recovery interface offered a way to trace the missing parent geometry.

TRACE PARENT

Mina said, “Don’t.”

“I haven’t touched anything.”

“Your voice changes before you touch things.”

“What does it change to?”

“Stupid.”

Rook pressed the button. Nothing happened. Then the wall changed. Not all at once. The black stones remained where they were, but another image occupied the same space.

For half a second Rook saw timber. Then plaster. Then an open archway. Then stone again. He stepped back.

“Mina?”

“I lost your location for a second.”

“My map just flickered.”

“So did you.”

“That’s rude.”

“I’m serious. Your party marker went gray.”

Rook looked at his hand. Normal. The wall flickered again. This time the archway stayed for almost a full second. Beyond it was sunlight. Not violet evening. Sunlight. Rook could see a courtyard. A tree. Someone walking past.

Then the black wall returned. His recovery window filled with text.

PERSISTENT RECOVERY ENTITY DETECTED

Contractor License: Valid

Migration privileges—

The line disappeared. Returned.

Migration privileges: INHERITED

Another line.

Version Lock:

Nothing.

No number. Just an empty field. Rook frowned.

“What does inherited mean?”

Mina told him to log out. Rook still had ninety seconds on the contract, and he had told Hobb he’d recover the bag. She mentioned the eels again, trying to make the promise sound smaller than it felt to him.

“I wasn’t talking about the eels.”

The wall flickered. The man with the oranges stopped on the other side of the arch. He looked straight at Rook and dropped one orange into the courtyard before the image vanished.

Rook told Mina he’d seen somebody there. She ordered him out of the game again.

Rook tried. A red message appeared. Logout temporarily unavailable during active recovery migration. He went still.

“I can’t.”

Mina stopped talking. The contract timer reached sixty seconds. Rook’s interface changed again.

RECOVERY TARGET LOCATED

Hobb_77 Personal Death Cache

Build: 9.3.11

Distance: 6.2 m

Restore connection to parent geometry?

YES / NO

Rook looked at the wall. Behind it, for the briefest instant, sunlight returned. He could see the orange lying on the paving stones. The man was gone.

“Rook,” Mina said quietly.

“I know.”

“Press no.”

He looked at the timer. 00:48 Then at the yellow marker. Six meters. Thirty-one silver. A level nineteen glaive. A Harrow Ring. A poison kit. A handmade coat. Forty-six silver. Smoked eels. Rook pressed YES.

The world made a sound like someone tearing wet cloth beside his ear. The floor vanished. His stomach dropped.

For one sickening second he was falling without moving, the customs house breaking into overlapping pieces around him: stone, timber, plaster, sunlight, rain, night, scaffolding, fire. His interface filled with errors.

CLIENT BUILD MISMATCH

WORLD STATE UNSUPPORTED

ENTITY VERSION UNRESOLVED

SEARCHING COMPATIBLE LINEAGE…

Rook tried to move. His body ignored him. Then everything stopped. He landed hard on both knees. Birds scattered. Actual birds. Not mire hounds. Not drowned clerks. Pigeons.

Rook lifted his head. The customs house was gone. No. It wasn’t gone. It was new.

White plaster walls surrounded a dry courtyard. The roof was intact. Red-and-gold banners hung from an upper gallery. The tree he’d glimpsed through the wall stood in the center, heavy with small yellow fruit. Sunlight warmed his face. Somebody shouted in the street outside.

A cart rattled over cobbles. Rook stayed on his knees. His minimap was blank. His party channel displayed one line. Mina — unavailable Then the system chimed. Not an error. A reward.

DISCOVERY REGISTERED

Uncataloged Legacy Environment World Build: 9.3.11 Discovery XP: +500 Rook stared at the number.

Level 19 — 44,123 / 44,000 XP

A second chime followed. Gold light ran across the edge of his vision.

LEVEL UP

Level 19 → 20

Maximum Health increased. Maximum Stamina increased. Attribute Points gained: 3 Skill Point gained: 1 Class Advancement now available.

For a moment, despite everything, Rook smiled. He couldn’t help it. Level twenty. Finally. Then another window opened.

CLASS ADVANCEMENT

Your current class, Runner, has reached its first advancement threshold.

Eligible paths: — Scout

— Pathfinder

— Retrieval Specialist

Ascension Seal required. Ascension Seal not found.

Acquire an Ascension Seal through qualifying gameplay or visit the Vastion Store. Rook laughed once. Of course.

He was apparently in a ten-year-old version of the game, possibly alone, his friend was gone, logout didn’t work, and the shop had followed him.

“Good to know some things survive.”

A final notification appeared beneath it. This one looked wrong. Its border wasn’t gold. It was gray. Plain. Old.

QUEST AVAILABLE

THE SOUTH GATE IS STILL OPEN

Report to Captain Orrel before sunset. Recommended Level: 12

Reward: 1,200 XP

Unknown

Unknown

Rook stopped smiling. He knew that name. Every Vastion player knew that name. Captain Orrel’s broken sword stood in the Hall of Founders in modern Lume.

The item description gave the date of his death. Nine years ago. Footsteps sounded behind Rook. He turned.

A man in a red customs uniform stood beneath the gallery, carrying a basket with one orange missing. It was the man from the other side of the wall. He stared at Rook’s wet clothes, his sword, then the yellow recovery marker floating over a leather backpack on the ground six meters away. Hobb’s backpack. The man looked back at Rook.

“There you are.”

Rook slowly got to his feet. The man sounded annoyed rather than surprised. Which was somehow worse.

“The south gate won’t hold past sundown,” he said. “Captain Orrel has been asking for runners for an hour.”

Outside, a bell began to ring. Rook looked toward the courtyard entrance. Beyond it lay a city he knew.

Except the towers weren’t ruined. The river hadn’t been diverted. The black cathedral on the hill was still white.

And hundreds of people were moving through streets that had not existed in Vastion for almost a decade. The system placed a small yellow arrow at the edge of his vision.

THE SOUTH GATE IS STILL OPEN

Distance: 1.4 km.

Rook looked down at Hobb’s backpack.

The recovery timer showed:

00:17

He picked it up.

RECOVERY CONTRACT COMPLETE

+31 silver

Contractor share: +12 silver, 4 copper

Inside the bag, something wriggled. Rook opened it just enough to look. Smoked eels. He closed it again.

“Of course.”

The customs officer frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Rook slung the dead man’s backpack over one shoulder and looked toward the bells. He had completed one job with seventeen seconds to spare. Apparently he’d arrived nine years early for the next one.