Eternyte
Part 1: Login
copyright comidacomida 2020

The global phenomenon 'Eternyte' was a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG).  At its peak popularity it had over 12 million subscribers and influenced pop culture in ways previously unseen.  Between celebrity commercials, internet memes, two feature-length movies, a three season anime, and merchandising that would have put the 'house of mouse' to shame, it was an entertainment powerhouse-- 'was', being the operative word.

Ten years and five expansions into its titanic dominance, Eternyte hit a metaphorical iceburg when its parent company KM Games was purchased by MIM Entertainment, a money hungry production house that wanted to leverage its success.  Eternyte had never been about profit; it had been about the game and the game world, and, despite many of its subscribers sticking out the numerous changes, most started to flee in droves.  Another six years and three expansions later and all of the gaming websites said that Eternyte was in life support, and probably wouldn't survive for much longer.  With barely a million subscribers left, everyone assumed that MIM Entertainment was looking to pull the plug.

Will had joined Eternyte two years into its run; he was ten at the time.  Due to issues at home and a minor learning disability, it hadn't been an easy time in his life.  His mom was in the military and that meant that they were constantly relocating.  Making friends wasn't easy for him and every time he invested the energy and finally managed to make a connection his family would pack up and move again.  It affected many aspects of his personality and by the time he was finishing up elementary school he was quiet, reserved, and isolated.  It was bad enough that the school councilor suggested seeing a specialist.

That specialist, as it turned out, was a fan of play therapy and after a month of weekly sessions a very odd prescription was suggested: Eternyte.  While his parents had been skeptical at first, they went along with the suggestion and the rest was history.  No longer confined to the 'here-and-now' of physical interaction, Will was able to put himself out there without fear of abandoning or being abandoned.  He could make friends online with whom he could connect regardless of where he lived.  It allowed him to finally keep the friends he made, and, for a time, things were good.

When MIM Entertainment took ownership of KM Games and its properties Will thought nothing of it, but, for him, it was the start of a downward spiral back into his earlier life as the friends he had made in game began to quit it.  He was finishing up high school at the time, and plowed through the day as an invisible nobody, fondly and desperately waiting for when he could get back home and return to his 'real' life online but, as the months went by, his circle of friends started to disappear.

Eternyte changed gradually over the next few years, but it was enough that more and more people fled, leaving only those dedicated enough or, in Will's case, desperate enough, to hold on.  He found himself caught up in a deep depression, enough so that he dropped out of college and spent most of his time locked away in his room.  His Dad, having divorced his mom earlier in that year, encouraged Will to go back to a therapist, suggesting that it helped the first time, so why not a second?  It didn't, and, as Eternyte continued to circle the drain Will's will to live did the same.  Still, even when he felt at his worst, he couldn't bring himself to do anything to end the pain; he had people depending on him.

It was what the therapist called a 'coping mechanism'.  During his almost-fifteen years as an Eternyte player, Will had amassed a huge amount of power, both in game, and among the community.  Right before KM was taken over by MIM, one of the mods on the community forum had recruited Will, and, as a community moderator, he took his duty to the community very seriously-- probably the only one who had.  MIM had little to no interest in the forums and so they had left it to fend for itself, which meant that, although not abandoned, there was no support for it.  Will took it upon himself to champion the site, going so far as to learn some basic coding to help update it as well as he could.

By the time MIM's third expansion was out, the majority of the board was all about bitching and moaning and pining for the old days, regretting that KM ever gave up creative control, and general belly-aching.  Will did what he could to keep morale up and pushed all positive threads as hard as he could, even going so far as to start lore sharing.  It was sad that most player who stuck-it-out were power players and members of heavy-raid guilds, but Will loved the community so much he tried everything he could do to reach out to those who, like himself, fell in love with the world of Eternyte.  It was particularly hard when he got a cease and desist notice from MIM for that love.

Will had read it at least a dozen times-- probably more.  Apparently the creative direction MIM was planning on taking the game for its next expansion had no room for the "old lore", and they noted that his input was no longer valued.  Although they didn't take away his moderator status, they threatened him with it and, worse, also noted that a repeat offense would result in his account being banned.  He fell into a deep depression and didn't log into the forum or even the game for a week.  Will spent most of the time laying in bed, and didn't bother leaving his room.  Another email notice finally snapped him out of it.

It was short and sweet, and to-the-point, addressed to William "Will Etherborn" Becker.  'Will Etherborn' was his in-game name.   The email read

'William "Will Etherborn" Becker:

Your dedication to Eternyte has not gone unnoticed.  Please reply with the correct answer to the following question: 

On which area of the Apocryphal Abyss does the final Assault boss "The Eternyte Golem" appear?
a)  The Shattered Halls
b)  The Broken Conservatory
c)  The Deep Catacombs
d)  The Fallen Terrace

I look forward to hearing your answer.'

Although Will was going to delete it, the return address caught his eye; it was sent from a KM Games mail server.  His mouse cursor hovered over the Delete button for the longest time, but he couldn't bring himself to do it... especially not when he was faced with such a question, and definitely not when he knew the answer.  Smiling to himself, he sent a reply:

'The answer is "E-- none of the above".  If you would have asked where the Eternyte Golem appears I would have said in The Broken Conservatory, but it isn't the last boss.  The last boss is one most Assault groups miss completely because he's in the secret zone you can only get to if everyone in your Assault group has the Nethershrike Amulet.  If you had asked where 'The Nethershrike Dragon' appears, I would have answered "The Apocryphal Nether".'

Will could have typed more, but he left it at that and hit the send button.  The 'discussion', such that it was, had been enough to get him out of bed and thinking about Eternyte, and so, rather than return to moping, he logged in.  Oddly, an in-game letter waited for him in his mailbox.  The fact that he had in-game mail was not all that strange, but what caught his attention was that it had originated from a Game Master. 

Game Masters, or GMs, were employees of MIM.  What doubly caught his attention was that the GM title was in the old KM red; MIM GMs used green.  Will greatly missed the ones from KM Games since they actually cared about the game and the players while MIM GMs were just underpaid help-desk wage slaves.  Still not completely understanding what was going on, Will opened it, and was surprised by what he saw: it was a clickable link with a short message:

'William "Will Etherborn" Becker:

You are being invited to a closed beta test for an upcoming expansion.  Please click on the attached link to be taken to the entry portal where you can sign up.  I hope we can see you there.

--Kevyn Marz'

Will spent almost an hour sitting in his chair staring at the letter.  The in-game mail system was supposedly one of the most secure parts of Eternyte, but there were always stories of hackers somehow getting in and sending out links to malicious websites.  People posted on the forums all the time about how their accounts were getting hacked, or phishing sites that gathered information to allow people to hijack logins.  Any player forgetting the importance of keeping their account safe risked losing it all. 

There were hundreds of reasons why Will knew he shouldn't click the link, but the one reason he SHOULD kept running through his mind: Kevyn Marz was the creator of Eternyte. He clicked.

* * * * *

Will never really cared about the weather outside his house; his dad kept the interior temperature at 68 year round and, since Will rarely left then the sun, clouds, rain, hail, sleet, and snow didn't matter to him in the least.  Wednesday the 19th, however, the young man cursed his luck because the one kind of weather that really mattered was going to cause him soul-wrenching problems: he had to contend with a thunder storm starting up a half hour before the private beta test went live.

While somewhat familiar with coding, Will was no hardware expert, and the prospect of losing power before or part way into the beta scared the shit out of him.  He had a back up UPS for his computer, but he couldn't keep his wifi going if the power went out.  He fidgeted, worrying about it endlessly as the clock ticked ever-closer to midnight.  A text message from his phone caught his attention, and then it struck him: he had an option!

Although he only had a half hour until 'go time', his work-around took only ten minutes to set up; it was going to destroy his monthly data limit on his cell plan, but with the ultra high speed connection through his dad's account he would be able to connect to Eternyte and stay connected even if the power went out.  Quickly checking his phone's battery, he thanked his past self that he'd charged it right after dinner.  The text message from his dad was probably indicating that he'd be working late, and so Will ignored it, and turned back to his computer, double and triple-checking that the new connection was good.  It was.

Will probably didn't need to be so excited; if he wanted his daily dose of Eternyte he could just as easily have logged into the main servers, or, at least, that's what anyone not in-the-know' would think.  No-- as one of the 'chosen insiders', Will had learned that big things were coming, and the Non-Disclosure he had to sign before being invited into the inner circle meant that the secret would remain untold... not that he minded; KM Games was regaining control of Eternyte, which meant that all would be right again, and seeing the Beta would help solidify that knowledge in his mind.  He needed that.  Desperately.

He continued counting down the minutes, going through his checklist to make sure he could make the most of the four hours of the beta; the fact that it was from 12am - 4am on a Wednesday only further reinforced the secrecy of the test run, not to mention that there were only two hundred of the most dedicated players invited to the event.  List was not published, so Will had no idea who to expect but, if they were all as handpicked as he was then there was a very good chance that he'd know them... assuming they came from his server, of course.  That thought gave him a moment's pause: there had been over 600 servers, so chances more likely than not that he wouldn't know them.

Continuing through his checklist, Will made sure he used the bathroom, grabbed himself a six pack of canned iced coffee and a fresh bag of chips.  He did a quick check of the house to make sure everything was locked up and set the house phone to go automatically to voicemail.  Staying up until 4am wasn't any great feat for him, and, with the help of the coffee (first, to drink, and then to use the containers as pee storage if absolutely necessary) he knew that nothing would take him from his computer during the beta.  Nothing.

With just over five minutes to go, Will logged into the Eternyte client.  A small button at the bottom of the screen which had been grayed out for several days was suddenly a vibrant gold, labeled as 'BETA'.  Wasting absolutely no more time, the young man pressed the button, then watched, stunned, as the login screen depicting a verdant jungle with a glowing rune stone amidst the foliage faded away, suddenly replaced by Eternyte's original login screen: a windswept plane with thunderclouds rumbling in the distance, and a similar-but-different rune stone in the foreground, floating just above the grass.

The vague information provided about the beta did hint about a rollback of sorts, and a revision to the expansions, but seeing the original splash screen for the game hit Will emotionally for more reasons than just the level 40 cap; it felt like coming home.  Finding himself crying, he didn't even bother try to hold back his tears.  Every single instinct in his body had told him that he was being taken advantage of and whatever the initial contact had been about was just going to lead him into some kind of trap where hackers would ruin his life by destroying his account but, finally, he realized that his desperate hope for something greater than was being fed to him by MIM would arrive.

In that moment, Will realized that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  KM Gaming was somehow regaining control of Eternyte and things would be made right.  He had been noticed by the once-CEO and founder of the company, and invited personally (or with a form letter-- it really didn't matter) to attend a closed beta with so few players taking part it may as well have been a private (but very large) LAN party.  The tears kept coming, but Will didn't mind.  He gazed longingly at the floating rune stone, grateful that he had put everything on the line to be where he was.

The remaining minutes felt like they were crawling to a halt, and Will went so far as to realize that the rune stone made one full rotation every eight seconds.  He started computing how much longer the wait was in rotations rather than seconds, and his mind began to wander; the invite had indicated that the character he'd get to use in the trial was his own, but 'Will Etherborn' was several expansions into the game, and level 125; the original level cap for Eternyte was only 40, so what would that mean?  They'd probably scale him back, he rationalized, but he wouldn't have to wait long to find out; glancing to the clock he saw that he had 61 seconds to go.

Heart beating wildly, Will sat at his computer, attention wholly on the screen.  The thunderstorm outside was getting worse and the lights in his room flickered, but he didn't give a damn; he'd gone to great lengths to make sure that everything would go smoothly.  Still focused on the screen he almost laughed, gazing across the windswept plains of the Eternyte world and the thunderstorm on the horizon. 

A bright flash highlighted the heavy drapes blocking the window of his bedroom at the same time as lightning crackled in the distance on screen; by pure coincidence the speakers of his computers produced the rumble from the lightning strike at the same time as he heard in in stereo from outside.  Another flash lit up his room thanks to the space between the curtains and a bolt of lightning struck the grasslands much closer to the rune stone in the game.  Once again the speakers and the rumble from outside were in perfect tandem.

Unwilling to let the weather outside keep him from his game, Will got up and walked to the window, adjusting the curtains to better block out the interruption.  A soft chime from his computer caught his attention and he turned back to regard the screen where a notice appeared: 

"Autojoin in 10."

He watched it counting down, chiming with each tick of the clock and he quickly went back to securing the curtains.  At 'five', the curtain rod fell down and Will cursed his luck.  He fumbled with the cloth, spouting out profanities, struggling to untangle himself through four, three, and two.  At one, he looked up, glancing back at the screen just in time to see the rune stone in the foreground get hit by lightning; at the same time he was lifted up of the ground as electricity coursed through his body.

* * * * *

Will must have lost consciousness because he remembered being surrounded by blackness, but he knew right away that he was conscious again thanks to his head pounding painfully.  His ears were ringing worse than the time his family had gone to the shooting range on the base and he'd refused to wear ear protection. 

It took him a few seconds as his meandering thoughts finally started coalescing into actual cognizant considerations, and the first thing he realized was that, despite how badly his head hurt, his body felt fine.  A moment later his attention snatched up that fact and made him realize something else: he couldn't move!

It was panicked at first, his heart beating powerfully in his chest and breath coming out with gasping inhalations and powerful blasts with each exhale and that, in and of itself eased some of his fears: he wasn't fully paralyzed.  Still, the concern remained: he obviously wasn't dead, but why then couldn't he move?  Moreover, why couldn't he see?  Will was surrounded by the deepest blackness that he'd ever seen or, more accurately, didn't see.  His mouth was open, and he tried to speak. "Hello?"

The single word echoed around him as if he were in an enormous chamber and yet, he continued seeing nothing.  Any time Will had been in the throes of a nasty headache in the past any sound made it worse, and yet the echoing call actually seemed to ease it.  He still couldn't move, and he still couldn't see, but at least the pounding in his head was decreasing, and his ears finally stopped ringing.  Was he getting better?  He hoped so.

Will tried to look around but, again, his head refused to comply.  Speaking up again, the young man called out for a second time. "Is anyone there?"

His words were reflected back to him again, all three lingering in the air, though 'is' disappeared first and 'there' lingered a little longer than the other two, providing the only sound available.  Will tried once more to move but to no effect.  It was impossible for him to know what was going on and with no sense aside from hearing it seemed unlikely he was going to have any help.  At that point, the only option he had was to do the only thing he could, and he called out again "Anyone?"

A response finally came, so quiet as to almost be lost amidst the echo of his own voice.  He was almost not even sure it was there,  and yet, somehow, it was still clear enough that he could make it out.  Soft-but-masculine, the speaker said simply  "Hello, Will Etherborn.  Welcome back to Mytholm."

Mytholm.  The name of the fantasy world in which Eternyte took place. What was going on?  Was he dead? Was he losing his mind?  The confusion and lack of understanding were suddenly pushed aside by the overpowering scent of burning wood but that told him little; despite the return of his sense of smell, Will still couldn't see, and the smokiness of his surroundings brought back the realization of the last thing he'd known for sure: he had been standing next to his window in a lightning storm.  Had he been hit?  Was his room on fire?  Was he so out of it that he was burning alive and not even knowing it?

The sudden heat he felt against his foot caused him to jump up with a start. "GYAH!"

His exclamation was repeated by a half-dozen other voices all around him, and a rapid retreat of movement pulled back from him.  Opening his eyes, Will looked around, his vision blurry.  For the first few seconds all he could see were shades of light, with the brightest being right near his feet.  A few seconds of blinking and he could make out the outline of what looked like an open fireplace or, more specifically, the kind of fire circles he was used to back when he and his parents were camping.  That fire, however, was indoors.

More specifically, he realized, he was in some kind of a large tent...a pavilion with sod floors.  He was not on the ground per se, laying on what looked like some kind of enormous dark brown fur rug.  Vision finally clearing, Will raised his attention to the movement taking place around him, and he came eye-to-eye with a brick-colored reptilian face, pale green eyes with slits-for-pupils gazing right back at him.  He jumped, repeating his earlier statement of surprise. "GYAH!"

The reptile mimicked the sound, leaping back from him and providing Will a much better view of what was attending him.  The creature was a three foot tall reptile, walking on two legs.  It had little spikes protruding from its cheek bones and a small one from the end of its snout along with a pair of three inch long horns atop its head; unless he was mistaken, it was a kobold... and it recovered from the surprise much slower than he did.

Gasping for air, the thing doubled over, four-clawed hand holding its chest as it adjusted the crudely made tunic it wore.  When it spoke English came out of its muzzle despite its scaled countenance moving nothing like it would need to do in order t pronounce the words correctly.  The thing's voice was high pitched and grating, but not entirely without a factor of cuteness, somewhat like a small, yapping dog. "Oh, Master, you're finally awake!  You frightened me." 
Will raised a hand to his head, thankful that his body was responding to his demands again.  He ran a finger through his hair, staring at the creature that regarded him with such familiarity.  What he found even more disconcerting was that he could have sworn he also recognized the Kobold.  It took him a few seconds before he realized why.  "Pip?"

The brick-colored reptile swept into a deep bow.  "Oh, the Master blesses me!  How sweet it is to hear it spoken aloud by you, Master Etherborn."

His tail swayed from one side to the other behind him in his low bow, knocking over a bucket of water in the process.  Ignoring the spilled bucket, Will's 'attendant' righted himself as two other kobolds quickly rushed in to clean up the mess in a matter of seconds then quickly disappeared into the background as if they'd never been there.  Taking that as an opportunity to examine his surroundings, Will saw that, in fact, he was surrounded by at least twenty of them, and it gave him a moment's pause: he recognized something else.

The large pavillion was comprised of several dozen hides stitched together and was held up by four saplings, which served as tent posts.  It was a very distinct setting in Ethercyte in one of the many low level zones: it was the kobold king's throne room in-- he spoke the village's name aloud "Craglecrawl."

The numerous Kobolds around him rose their spindly arms skyward (tentward?) as they cried out in euphoric patriotism. "Craglecrawl!"

Pip the Herald followed that up with "All hail the Master, Will Etherborn!"

Will was struck dumb, trying to remember where the Kobold's honorific came from, until he remembered where he'd heard it before: in his diary.  All players had a character diary they could use as an in-game note taking device, but Will used it as a roleplaying tool; he'd spend hours and hours typing in it, storytelling events he'd undertaken in the game so he could look back on his escapades and remember how far he'd come since level one. 

A flash of golden light caused him to jump in surprise, staring in disbelief as he gazed down at the exact book from the game sitting in his hand.  He had absolutely no idea about what to say to that. "I..."

Pip, however, did.  "Ooh!  Story time!"

As if mimicking what Will would have expected from a classroom of first graders, Will was suddenly swarmed with Kobolds climbing on him, sitting on him, hanging off him, and leaning against him as all reptilian eyes focused exclusively on the book he held.  Not knowing what else  to do, he numbly opened the diary and, as if by magic, it flipped to the exact page he was thinking about: when he was level twelve he and some of his friends conquered the Craglecrawl Kobolds by defeating their king... and he had written about it.

While the game never really went into detail about what happened at the end of the party instance, the kobolds stopped attacking the town so most player just called it good and presumed that they'd annihilated the threat.  Will, however, instead of destroying them, chose to think of it as liberating an innocent collection of humanoids who had been pushed to war by an evil overlord.  He ended with the entry that they'd accepted him as their new leader, and that he intended to guide them into an age of prosperity and peace.

Even as he slowly closed the diary he could hear the words of his written story echo around the pavilion as if he'd just read it aloud.  He hadn't and, besides, even if he had, the hide making up the structure wouldn't have made an echo.  Regardless, all of the kobolds cheered and celebrated as if Will had just concluded with 'and they lived happily ever after'.

Pip jumped off his lap and reached out to encircle his wrist with both spindly talons. "Master!  Master!  We're so glad you're back!"

Will was still confused. "Back?"

He had never actually been to Craglecrawl and, if he were to suspend his disbelief and assume that, for some strange reason, he were actually in Mytholm as his character, the last time he logged out he was in the city of Vartyn.  Following Pip toward the exit, he came to a stop.  "Wait."

"What is it, Master?"

Will mumbled to himself. "Vartyn was from the sixth expansion..."

The Kobold cocked his head to the side. "Are you still tired, Master Etherborn?  Would you rather sleep more?  Lord Minotaurus said he would be waiting for you... are you--?"

Suddenly he was struck by a moment of clarity.  Minotaurus was one of his character's strongest base-game companions, and right before the release of the first expansion Will had gone back to the entrance of Craglecrawl as--

His thought came to a halt as the grand (for a kobold) tent flaps of the pavilion's seven foot tall entrance were pushed aside, and an eight-foot tall minotaur had to duck down so his horns wouldn't catch on the entryway.  Standing in front of the exit was an enormous man-bull covered in roan fur except for his muzzle, which was off-white.  The minotaur's stature was a thing of legend, nearly as wide as a human was tall, and his every move caused the muscles of a seasoned warrior to ripple beneath his fur.

Will took a hesitant step back as the beast man's hardened gaze settled on him, dark-brown eyes peering not just at, but into him.  Almost as if performing a rehearsed dance, Minotaurus Bloodhorn, Thrall of the Etherborn bent knee to him.  "My Lord, you return to us, and I am once again whole."

Will was frozen in place, barely even able to murmur. "Minotaurus..."

The enormous warrior raised his head, shaggy mane falling down over one side of his face as the remaining eye gazed out with iron-like will, and barely-restrained emotion.  The minotaur's deep voice shook with ardent determination and total devotion.  "Master, I am yours to command."