The first thing they noticed was the smell. It wasn't sulphur, blood, the dampness of a dungeon, or the sickly sweetness of gingerbread. It was the smell of ozone, overheated plastic, cheap instant coffee, and the stale, deep-seated dust of old server towers. A scent familiar to anyone who has ever been stuck in an office until dawn.
They tumbled out of the portal—which turned out to be the hatch of a gargantuan industrial unit, a cross between a server rack and a washing machine—and immediately dropped into combat stances.
"Contact!" Lena barked from inside her helmet, activating her armour’s scanners. The symbiote beneath her plating tensed, primed for a scrap.
"Where are they?!" Nate raised her cutlass and plasma cannon, her visor flashing red as she swept for targets.
"Light and Flame, protect us..." Irina struck the floor with her staff, conjuring a protective circle of golden fire around the group.
But nobody attacked.
They were in a corridor. The most drab, soul-crushing, depressing corridor imaginable. Grey walls painted with cheap, peeling emulsion. A suspended "Armstrong" ceiling where half the tiles were stained yellow from leaks and the other half were missing entirely, exposing clusters of wires and ventilation ducts. Fluorescent lights hummed and flickered, casting jerky, sickly shadows. The floor was covered in a worn-out carpet of an indeterminate mucky-brown-green, seemingly saturated with decades of spilt tea and tears.
[Location: The Administrator’s Tower. Level: ‘Ring Zero / Development Department’.] > [Threat Level: Undefined. Atmosphere: Existential Dread.]
"Is this... is this the Tower?" Nate’s voice was uncertain. She lowered her cutlass. "Seriously? The final location? This looks more like the accounts department where I used to temp as a courier."
"Don't let your guard down," Lena said, removing her helmet to get a better sense of the surroundings. The air was stale and dry, making her throat itch. "It could be an illusion. Like the Maestro's."
"It's no illusion," Rollo noted, rolling forward on his glowing sneakers. His mirror shades reflected the infinite greyness of the hall. "My sensors say this is... the base. The source code of reality. We’re behind the curtain of the entire Festival."
"And where are the fanfares? Where’s the epic music?" Irina looked around in bewilderment. Her magnificent High Priestess vestments looked as absurd here as a ballgown in a slaughterhouse.
"Move out," Lena pointed to the only door at the end of the corridor—a double-leaf, battered thing with frosted glass inserts.
They approached the door. Beyond the glass, it was dark, but a strange, monotonous hum could be heard. Shuffling, clicking, and soft, rhythmic moans. Lena pushed the door open. It gave a nasty, long-winded creak.
They stepped into Hell. Not the Hell of lava and demons they’d seen in the volcano; this was the Hell of the Open-Plan Office.
A gargantuan space stretching into infinity, divided by thousands of low partitions into tiny, claustrophobic cubicles. And in every cubicle sat... someone. Not humans. Not monsters. They were Shadows.
"God..." Irina whispered, clutching her hand to her chest.
The creatures inhabiting this open-plan nightmare were grotesque. They were huge, bloated, as if filled not with flesh but with the heavy, dark water of despair. Their bodies were formless, gelatinous, translucent—the colour of a thundercloud. They had no faces—only smooth, grey surfaces bowed toward their monitors. They sat on sagging chairs, their fat, ethereal fingers flying over keyboards with incredible speed, producing that frantic clicking sound. On the monitors, streams of code, red error windows, and deadline charts with values plunging into the negative blurred past at a dizzying pace.
Heaps of virtual rubbish lay everywhere: empty pizza boxes, energy drink cans, crumpled cups. All of it was grey and ghostly, as if woven from digital rot.
[NPC: Developer Shadow (Lvl. ???)] > [Status: Eternal Crunch. Burnout 500%.] > [Feature: Does not react to external stimuli. Absorbed in an infinite loop of creating and patching bugs.]
The girls walked slowly down the aisle between the rows of cubicles. Their heavy boots were muffled by the hum of keyboards and the constant, low-level muttering of the Shadows:
"...deadline was yesterday... fix doesn't work... textures are drifting... more coffee... want to sleep... Administrator is displeased..."
"Oi!" Nate couldn't help herself and jabbed the barrel of her plasma cannon into the shoulder of the nearest Shadow. "Where’s the exit to the next level?!"
The cannon passed through the creature’s shoulder like smoke. The Shadow didn't even flinch. It kept typing, its muttering never breaking rhythm for a second.
"They can't see us," Lena realised. "We don't exist to them. We’re just the content they’re building. Characters on a screen."
"This is... it's horrific," Irina said, staring at the bloated, hunched figures. In her dragon heart, usually hungry for battle or gold, there was now only pity. "They’re trapped here. Forever."
"It’s a punishment," Rollo said quietly. "These are the ones who built the Festival. They poured their souls into it, and the System swallowed them whole. They became part of the engine."
They had to navigate this endless labyrinth of cubicles to reach the central lift shaft, which, according to the map, was a kilometre away. They’d been walking for about twenty minutes when the atmosphere in the office began to shift. The hum of keyboards grew quieter. The muttering of the Shadows ceased. The bloated figures in the cubicles froze, their faceless heads turning in perfect unison toward the direction the girls had come from. A tension hung in the air, heavy as a lead blanket.
"What’s going on?" Nate spun around, cutlass at the ready. "I feel... a chill."
"Something’s coming," Lena slid her helmet back on. The interface showed a massive spike in threat levels but couldn't localise the source. "Everyone, get ready."
THUD.
The sound was heavy, authoritative. As if someone had dropped a concrete slab onto the floor.
THUD.
Footsteps. Slow, measured, inevitable. They were approaching from deep within the corridor. The Developer Shadows began to shrink. Their bloated bodies pulled into their shoulders; they tried to become smaller, less noticeable, merging into the grey partitions.
"He’s coming..." a single breath of terror shivered through the office. "The Overseer... The Moderator... The Scrubber..."
A figure appeared at the start of the aisle. Not a monster with fangs and tentacles—it was much worse. It was a Man. Or what had once been one. He was tall, nearly eight feet, and broad-shouldered. He wore a perfectly tailored but entirely grey business suit that looked less like fabric and more like an extension of his grey, stony skin. His face had no features—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Only a smooth grey mask across which, like static on a screen, lines of red code occasionally flickered.
In his right hand, he held an object resembling a gargantuan, stylised Banhammer, made of black metal with electrical discharges dancing across it. On his left arm was a brassard with the inscription: [MODERATOR].
[LOCATION BOSS: Overseer of Ring Zero / Protocol ‘Absolute Order’ (Lvl. ???)] > [Type: Cyber-Golem / Administrative Entity] > [Feature: Immortal. Relentless. Non-negotiable.]
He stopped ten metres away. The faceless head turned slowly, scanning the intruders.
"UNAUTHORIZED OBJECTS DETECTED," the voice sounded not like speech, but like a broadcast through blown speakers—a mix of grinding metal, white noise, and synthesised bass. "VIOLATION OF CODE PURITY PROTOCOL. VERDICT: DELETION."
He raised the hammer.
"Immortal?" Nate repeated, her voice trembling despite her captain’s frock coat. "Are you taking the mick?"
"Let's find out!" Lena didn't wait.
Activating the thrusters on her boots, she bolted forward. The symbiote beneath her plating transformed her arms into two razor-sharp blades. She poured all her momentum, all her Level 25 strength, and the full power of her real armour into the strike. The blow landed square on the Overseer’s chest.
CLANG.
Lena’s blades bounced off the grey suit as if hitting a diamond wall. Not a single scratch remained on the fabric. The Overseer didn't even flinch.
"INVASION OF ADMINISTRATIVE PERSONAL SPACE," he droned.
He struck with the hammer. It wasn't just a physical hit—it was a strike against reality itself. Lena managed to block by crossing her blades, but the force was so immense she was simply swept away. She flew twenty metres, smashing through cubicle partitions and scattering shrieking Developer Shadows before slamming into the wall.
[Critical Damage! Armour damaged by 30%. Health: 60%.]
"Eli!" Irina raised her staff. The golden Dragon’s fury boiled within her. "Don’t you dare touch my friends, you office-golem! DRAGON’S BREATH!"
A torrent of golden fire struck the Overseer, engulfing him completely. This was the flame that melted tank armour and incinerated mimics. But when the fire cleared, the Overseer stood in the exact same spot. His suit wasn't even scorched. He simply brushed a non-existent speck of dust from his shoulder.
"MAGIC NOT AUTHORISED IN THIS SECTOR."
"Nate, fire! Everything you've got!" Lena shouted, scrambling out from under the wreckage of office furniture.
Nate whipped out her plasma cannons. These weren't the stylish chrome pea-shooters from before; they were heavy combat weapons. She squeezed the triggers. Two streams of concentrated plasma slammed into the Overseer’s head. This time, there was an effect. The golem’s head snapped back. A crack appeared on the grey mask, and out sprayed not light or blood, but a cluster of dead pixels. The Overseer staggered and fell to one knee.
[Enemy STUNNED (Status: System Reboot). Duration: 5 seconds.]
"Get in!" Nate yelled. "We’ve breached him!"
"No," Rollo said, panic in his voice as he scanned the enemy. "We haven't breached him. we’ve... hung him. Like a frozen program."
And indeed, the crack on the Overseer’s face began to seal before their eyes. The pixels reassembled into a smooth grey surface. He began to rise.
"RUN!" Lena commanded. "We can't kill him! We need to get to the lift!"
They bolted down the aisle, leaping over desks and shoving aside the apathetic Shadows. From behind came a heavy thudding.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The Overseer wasn't running. He was walking. But his strides were gargantuan, and with every step, he seemed to contract the space between them. He was as inevitable as a deadline.
"He’s gaining on us!" Irina cried, looking back. Her dragon wings were useless in this cramped labyrinth.
"Rollo! Find a path! Shortest route!" Lena brought up the rear, ready to turn and take the blow at any second to buy the others time.
"Right! Through the server room! There should be a shortcut!"
They veered into a side passage, smashed through a glass door, and found themselves in a vast hall filled with humming server racks. It was freezing; red and blue indicators flashed everywhere. The floor was a raised metal grid, with thick cables snaking underneath.
"Watch out!" Rollo warned. "High concentration of raw magic here! Don't step on the cables!"
A crash sounded from behind. The Overseer simply walked through the wall, smashing it with his hammer. He spotted them and quickened his pace.
"DELETION!" The hammer struck a server rack. The rack exploded in a fountain of sparks and shrapnel.
"Nate, stall him!" Lena shouted.
Nate spun around mid-run, skidding across the metal floor. She whipped out her boarding cutlass.
"Oi, Suit! Fancy a dance?!"
She knew she wouldn't kill him. She just needed time. She parried the hammer blow, nearly dropping her cutlass from the monstrous recoil. She dodged a grab from a massive grey hand, dived under a swing, and slashed at his legs. The blade kicked up sparks from his trousers but failed to cut the fabric.
"Bollocks, what are you made of?! Vibranium?!"
The Overseer grabbed her by the throat. The grip was like steel.
"INTRUDER CAPTURED. COMMENCING FORMATTING PROCEDURE."
"Nate!" Irina turned back.
She didn't use fire. She used her staff like a spear, pouring all her physical strength—boosted by dragon blood—into a strike against the Overseer’s elbow joint. The joint gave a sickening crack. The hand released its grip. Nate fell to the floor, gasping for air.
"Get up! Leg it!" Irina hauled her up.
They burst from the server room into another endless corridor.
"The lift!" Rollo pointed ahead. "Those doors at the end!"
A hundred metres ahead lay the massive doors of a freight lift. But the Overseer was right behind them. He had repaired his arm in seconds and was now moving faster, his hammer sparking, ready to strike.
"We won't have time to call the lift!" Lena realised. "He’ll squash us while we’re waiting!"
They reached the doors. Rollo lunged for the call panel, hammering at the buttons.
[ATTENTION. LIFT OCCUPIED. WAIT TIME: 5 MINUTES.]
"Five minutes?!" Nate wailed. "We’re dead meat!"
The Overseer was twenty metres away. He raised his hammer for a final blow that would flatten them all at once.
"DELETION."
"Rollo! A glitch! Find a glitch!" Lena screamed, turning to face the enemy and activating her shield to the max. She knew it wouldn't hold, but she had to try.
The hedgehog darted around the doors in a panic, his glasses scanning the environment.
"There isn't one! It’s all clean! The code is perfect! This is Ring Zero!"
Then his gaze fell on a small, unassuming door to the side of the lift shaft. It bore a bin symbol and the label: [DUMP / ERROR DISPOSAL].
"The bin!" Rollo squeaked. "It’s the only way out!"
"What?! In the bin?" Irina cried, outraged.
"It’s either the bin or non-existence! Take your pick!"
The Overseer took his final step and began to bring the hammer down. His shadow engulfed them.
"IN THE BIN!" the girls shouted in unison.
Lena grabbed Rollo, and Nate yanked the door handle. It gave way. Behind it was a black hole that reeked of rotten code and despair. They jumped into the void a fraction of a second before the Overseer’s hammer slammed into the floor.
KABOOM!
The impact was so violent the corridor shook, the lights failed, and cracks raced up the walls. But the heroines were gone. They were falling into the black unknown of the disposal system, having escaped an immortal guardian into the only place he couldn't follow—the digital rubbish heap of the Festival.
Falling through the Tower’s trash chute was unlike any ride they had experienced. It wasn't a physical fall down a pipe; it was more like being defragmented alive. Their bodies were stretched and compressed as they tumbled through layers of corrupted data, shreds of textures, fragments of deleted locations, and echoes of forgotten dialogue. Ghostly images blurred past: half-finished monsters with their polygons showing, levels consisting of nothing but grey cubes, and endless streams of red error code.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"I’m going to puke pixels!" Nate groaned, spinning in the weightlessness.
"Stay together!" Lena’s voice crackled through her helmet. "Don’t drift apart! We don't know where we’ll be spat out!"
"I see a light at the end of the tunnel!" Rollo squeaked, his glasses glowing in the darkness of the digital stream. "That’s the exit point! Brace for a bumpy landing!"
WHOOSH. BANG. CRUNCH.
They were spat out of a hole in the wall six feet above the ground. They landed in a tangled heap, armour clattering and swearing in various languages (Irina even recalled a few choice Draconic phrases).
"My lower back’s gone..." Nate struggled out from under Lena, straightening her tricorne hat. "That was the worst bloody teleport in history. I demand compensation for emotional distress."
"Where are we?" Lena stood up first, immediately activating her helmet scanners.
They had expected a junkyard—mountains of digital refuse, shards of code. But they were in an office again. Another floor of the Tower, a clone of the previous open-plan nightmare. The same low partitions, the same grey carpet, the same hum of fluorescent lights.
But there were differences. The air didn't just smell of dust and cheap coffee; it held a chemical tang—solvent, acrylic, and the overheated plastic of graphics tablets. And the "Shadows" inhabiting this floor looked different.
Where the previous floor was home to hunched, grey coders, this place belonged to the Artists. Their ghostly, translucent bodies were slightly more colourful—stains of blue, red, and green broke through the grey haze, as if they were smeared with virtual paint. Their workstations were buried not just in rubbish, but in references: printouts of anatomical atlases, photos of models in bizarre poses, and sketches of weapons and armour pinned to the walls. They weren't tapping at keyboards; they were dragging styluses across massive graphics tablets with nervous, twitchy movements.
"Another circle of hell," Irina whispered, dusting off her magnificent priestly robes. "The Design Department?"
They walked slowly between the rows, trying to be quiet, though the locals seemed just as oblivious to them as the coders had been. Lena peered over the shoulder of one of the Shadows. On a massive monitor, a graphics editor window was open. The artist was drawing... a female breast. A gargantuan, hypertrophied, gravity-defying breast encased in shiny latex.
The Shadow was muttering under its breath: "...more highlights... the Administrator wants more highlights... jiggle physics... even less fabric... the players love it when you can see everything..."
Lena felt a surge of cold fury. She recognised the style. It was the exact style in which her "Void Harness" had been rendered.
She moved further down. The next Shadow was drawing an elf. Or rather, what was left of an elf after applying the "Maximum Fan-Service" filter. The elf was wearing three strings and pauldrons that were larger than her head.
"...armoured bikini finished... add spikes to the thong... why? No idea... the brief says so... I wanted to paint landscapes... I went to the academy... now I’m drawing orc backsides..."
"God," Nate stopped at another monitor. There was a 3D model of herself. Or rather, her "energy-thong" version. The Artist Shadow was rotating the model, adjusting the "gluteal glow."
"...optimising polygons in the crotch area... add a wetness effect... the Administrator says it’ll increase engagement by 14%... I hate my life..."
Nate clenched her fists so hard her leather gloves creaked.
"So that’s how it is," her voice trembled with rage. "It’s not just the System. These are real people. Or what’s left of them. They sit here and lecher over our pixels, dreaming up new ways to humiliate us."
Irina approached a monitor where a concept art for the "Vestments of the Forgotten Nun" was being developed—the very same "sack" she had frozen in. Beside it hung another concept—her "dragon bikini" with the torn cape. The Artist Shadow drawing it was weeping quietly, smearing ghostly tears across the tablet.
"...forgive me, holy maiden... I didn't want to... they forced me... they said modesty doesn't sell..."
Irina touched the screen with her finger. The Shadow flinched but didn't look back.
"It’s not their fault," the Priestess said softly. "They are prisoners just like the coders. Their talent has been perverted. They were forced to create ugliness instead of beauty."
"I don't care," Lena slid her helmet on. Her visor hid a face twisted in disgust. "Fault or no fault, they’re part of the machine. And we’re going to break the machine. Rollo, where’s the exit? We need to go higher. To where the people giving these briefs are sitting."
The hedgehog, who had been scanning the local networks by plugging into an open port, looked up.
"Two bits of news. The good one: I’ve found the floor plan. The lift shaft is straight ahead, through the Art Directors' hall. The bad news..."
He didn't get to finish. The walls of the office shuddered. The lights flickered and turned an alarming red.
[ATTENTION. UNAUTHORIZED ASSETS DETECTED. PURGE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.]
The Overseer’s voice. It didn't come from speakers; it came from everywhere at once, vibrating through the very walls of the Tower.
"He’s found us!" Nate whipped out her cutlass and plasma cannon. "How?! We escaped into the bin!"
"He’s part of the system!" Rollo squeaked, disconnecting from the port. "He can move through the Tower instantly! He just tracked our exit from the glitch!"
At the far end of the hall, near the lifts, the wall began to melt. Grey reality dissolved into pixels, and from this digital breach stepped Him. The Overseer of Ring Zero. The grey golem in the business suit. This time, he looked even larger, even more terrifying. His hammer sparked not just with electricity, but with the red energy of deletion.
The Artist Shadows, seeing him, panicked even more than the coders had. They tried to hide under desks, shielding their monitors with their translucent bodies as if trying to protect their pathetic creations.
"ERROR DELETION," the Overseer thundered, taking his first step.
He swung the hammer and struck the nearest row of desks. Monitors, tablets, desks, and the Shadows sitting at them—it all simply vanished, erased from reality, leaving only a void and the smell of ozone.
"He’s not just killing them," Irina realised. "He’s erasing them. Completely."
"Run!" Lena commanded. "To the lifts! We have to slip past him!"
They bolted forward, weaving between the rows and leaping over desks that still displayed sketches of armoured bikinis and massive backsides. The Overseer moved to intercept. He didn't run; he simply walked, yet his strides covered immense distances. He passed through walls and partitions, leaving a trail of deleted reality in his wake.
"Nate, Ira! Distract him! Give me a second!" Lena shouted.
"Me again?!" Nate complained, but she spun around. "Oi, you walking ban-hammer! Your mother was a calculator and your father was a game of Tetris!"
She opened fire with her plasma cannon, aiming for the faceless mask. The plasma exploded against the grey skin, doing no damage but drawing his attention. Irina struck the floor with her staff.
"DRAGON LIGHT: BLINDING FLASH!"
The hall was flooded with an unbearably bright golden light. The Artist Shadows screamed silently, covering their eyes. The Overseer hesitated for a second, his sensors overloaded.
"VISUAL INTERFERENCE. CORRECTION."
That second was all Lena needed. She wasn't going to fight him. She was going to use the environment. Sprinting to a massive industrial printer in the centre of the hall—which was busy churning out life-sized posters of half-naked elves—she shoved her hands into the machinery.
"Symbiote, do it! Overload!"
Black sludge invaded the mechanism. The printer roared, sparked, and... exploded. But not with fire—with a cloud of toner and ink. A black, red, and blue cloud engulfed half the hall, including the Overseer.
"COLOUR ANOMALY. SENSOR FAILURE," the golem droned, now covered from head to toe in multi-coloured ink, looking like a nightmarish clown.
"Move!" Lena waved them on.
They slipped past the disoriented enemy and burst into the lift lobby. There were six lifts. All of them were locked. Red text glowed above them: [ALARM. FLOOR LOCKDOWN.]
"Bollocks!" Nate slammed her fist against the call button. "We’re trapped!"
From behind, out of the toner cloud, the Overseer appeared. He had already begun self-cleaning—the ink was simply vanishing from his body. He raised his hammer.
"SESSION END."
"The window!" Rollo shouted.
The hedgehog pointed to the massive panoramic windows at the end of the lobby. Beyond them, through the grey haze of the clouds, other spires of the Tower and the distant, tiny ground were visible.
"We’re on the 500th floor!" Lena said, glancing at her helmet’s altimeter. "If we jump, we’re history!"
"We’ve got no choice!" Rollo was already rolling toward the glass. "Either we’re pancakes on the pavement or we’re deleted here! I’m taking the flight!"
"He’s right," Irina gripped her staff tighter. "I have wings. I can... slow the fall a bit."
"I’ve got anti-gravs... maybe they’ll give me one last boost..." Nate said uncertainly.
"And I’ve got symbiote-hooks," Lena nodded. "Right. In for a penny, in for a pound."
They took a running start. The Overseer was only five metres away. He swung his hammer to erase them along with the floor.
"DELETION!"
"Go to hell!" Lena was the first to hit the reinforced glass, leading with a shoulder bolstered by the symbiote.
The glass spider-webbed with cracks but refused to shatter.
"Together!" she screamed.
Nate and Irina slammed into the pane right behind her.
CRASH.
The massive panoramic window exploded into a million shards. Cold, thin air whipped into their faces. They leaped into the void a fraction of a second before the Overseer’s hammer struck the space where the window had been, pulverising a chunk of the building’s wall and sending an avalanche of concrete and glass tumbling after them.
They plummeted downwards, tracing the infinite wall of the Administrator’s Tower. The wind shrieked in their ears. The ground below looked like a low-resolution map.
"AAAAARGH!" Rollo wailed, trying to kick-start the thrusters on his sneakers, but they only spat sparks.
"Ira! Wings!" Lena shouted into her helmet.
Irina focused. Ghostly golden wings unfurled behind her back. Their fall slowed, but they were still hurtling downwards at a terrifying speed.
"I can't hold everyone! We’re too heavy!"
"Nate! Anti-gravs!"
Nate hammered at her bracelets. "Come on, you beauty! Just a little nudge!"
The bracelets flickered and emitted a weak blue pulse. It jolted them upwards a couple of metres, but then the descent resumed.
"We’re going to be pancakes!" Nate noted.
Lena stared at the Tower wall blurring past. It was smooth, almost entirely featureless.
"No. Not today. Symbiote! Full lock!"
She twisted in mid-air. Dozens of black tendrils tipped with diamond hooks shot from her back and arms. They slammed into the Tower wall, throwing off sparks, piercing the cladding, and biting deep into the concrete. The jerk was horrific. Lena felt as if her arms were being torn from their sockets. She screamed in pain, but the symbiote held. They hung there on the side of the Tower, four hundred storeys above the ground, dangling in the wind like Christmas ornaments.
High above, in the shattered window of the 500th floor, stood the Grey Overseer. He peered down at them, his faceless mask expressionless.
"OBJECTS OUT OF REACH. REROUTING," he droned, turning away and vanishing into the depths of the floor.
"He’s gone," Nate exhaled, dangling from one of Lena’s tendrils. "We’re alive."
"For now," Lena looked down at the dizzying abyss. Then she looked up at the hundreds of floors they still had to conquer.
They were outside. On the wall of the most heavily guarded and dangerous Tower in the world. And they had to climb.
"Right then, mountaineers," Lena said, feeling the symbiote beginning to haul them upwards. "Ready for round two? No safety nets this time, and a persistent berk on our tail. Move out. To the top."
The wind at four hundred storeys was more than just a breeze. It was an icy, roaring torrent that tried to peel them off the Tower wall like old paint. Lena was the anchor. The symbiote, having turned her limbs into climbing crampons, bit into the building’s exterior, leaving deep gouges in concrete and metal. Every lunge upwards was a battle of agony. Her muscles burned, and the symbiote pulsed, draining the biomass reserves they had accumulated back at "Heavenly Bliss."
"Just... a bit... further..." she rasped into her helmet, hauling the weight of three people and a hedgehog.
Nate, hanging from a symbiote-tendril safety line, tossed in the wind like a rag doll. Her "Anti-Grav Braces" were long dead and were now just dead weight.
"If I survive this," she screamed over the howl of the gale, "I’m writing such a stinker of a review for this game that their servers will spontaneously combust from the shame!"
Irina, bringing up the rear of this bizarre chain, was holding up best of all. Her dragon blood kept her warm from the inside, and her ghostly wings—while unable to lift them—acted as stabilisers, preventing the wind from smashing them against the wall.
"Don't look down, Rollo!" she shouted to the hedgehog, who was clinging to her shoulder with every quill, eyes squeezed shut behind his trendy glasses.
"I’m not looking! I’m in hibernation! Wake me up when there’s a solid floor and Wi-Fi!"
They climbed for an hour. Or perhaps two. Time had lost all meaning. Floors blurred past—identical grey windows hiding endless rows of servers, archives, and strange machinations. The Tower felt infinite. Finally, Lena’s strength gave out. The symbiote faltered. A hook slipped from a smooth panel, and they dropped a couple of metres before the safety line jerked taut, nearly dislocating Lena’s shoulders.
"That’s it. I’m done," she croaked. Her visor was fogged with condensation. "I can’t go any further. We have to go inside. Right now."
She looked at the nearest window. It was indistinguishable from the thousands of others.
"Nate, Ira. Get ready. I’m breaking in."
Lena swung on the cable, braced her feet against the wall, and—gathering her last dregs of energy—transformed her right arm into a heavy battering ram.
"KNOCK-KNOCK, BASTARDS!"
CRASH!
The reinforced glass couldn't withstand the impact of the symbiote-hammer. It exploded inwards, showering the room in a rain of shards. Pushed by the wind, the three heroines and the hedgehog tumbled through the hole, rolling across the floor.
They expected to see another open-plan office full of coders or artists. But this floor was different. It was brighter. And far noisier. This was the Department of Game Design and Monetisation.
The space was filled with massive whiteboards covered in incomprehensible graphs, formulas, and diagrams that looked like world-domination plans. Holographic projections of charts hung in the air, with red arrows crawling up or down. And here, too, were the Shadows.
The Designer Shadows were different from the others. Not hunched and quiet, but twitchy and aggressive. Their translucent bodies gestured constantly as they paced before the boards, arguing with one another and jabbing ghostly fingers at the graphs. Their voices sounded like a discordant choir, full of cynicism and cold, mathematical cruelty. The girls, crouching behind an overturned ping-pong table, listened in.
"...retention metrics in the 'Swamp of Despair' are down by 12%! Players are finding the exit too quickly!" declared one Designer Shadow, whose head resembled a bloated calculator. "I suggest increasing the spawn rate of Sucker-Leeches and adding a mandatory quest to collect 50 'Rotten Roots' with a 1% drop rate."
"That'll boost engagement!" another piped up. "And it’ll drive sales for the 'Elixir of Patience' in the cash shop! Genius, colleague!"
Nate ground her teeth. "Engagement," she whispered. "They call our suffering 'engagement'."
But the most interesting conversation was happening at a huge board titled: PROJECT 'SEXUALIZATION 3.0': Fanservice Effectiveness Analysis. Standing there were two Shadows that looked like caricatures of "efficiency managers."
"Colleagues, note the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) graph following the patch with the new breast physics," the first one said, pointing a stick at a rising curve. "An 18% increase in a single week!"
"Impressive," the second nodded. "And what about the 'High-Exposure Costumes' segment?"
"Even more interesting. We ran an A/B test. One group of players was given a quest for 'Full Plate Armour,' while the other got the 'Dragon Scale Armoured Bikini' with identical defence stats."
"And the result?" Irina leaned forward, a bad feeling settling in her gut.
"94% of male players and 78% of females chose the bikini!" the Manager Shadow announced triumphantly. "It’s scientifically proven: the fewer polygons on a character’s body, the higher the click-through rate in the shop!"
"Brilliant!" the second marveled. "Right then, let's approve the plan for next quarter: get rid of trousers in all armour sets above Level 10. Replace them with 'tactical thongs' and 'combat stockings'."
"But what about the lore? Realism?"
"Sod the lore! Players want a spectacle! They want everything to jiggle according to a complex physics model when the characters run! We aren't selling a game; we're selling dopamine tied to visual stimuli! The bigger the arse on screen, the more money in the till! It’s not vulgarity; it’s pure mathematics!"
Lena slowly rose from behind her cover. She removed her helmet. Her face was pale with rage.
"Mathematics, is it?" she said, her voice booming through the silence of the hall.
The Designer Shadows froze, turning their faceless heads toward her.
"So that’s why we were running about starkers," Lena continued, stepping out into the light. The symbiote on her armour began to pulse, sensing its host's mood.
"We’re just numbers in a report to them," Irina added, standing beside her. Her staff began to glow with a fierce golden light. "Rows in a database. A 'jiggle physics coefficient'."
"Right, that’s it," Nate said, reloading her plasma cannons. "I’ll show you my 'physics' now. It’s going to be bloody hot and very painful."
The Designer Shadows grew agitated. They weren't used to the 'content' talking back.
"BEHAVIOURAL PATTERN VIOLATION!" shrieked a manager brandishing a pointer. "IT’S A BUG! CALL MODERATION! WHERE IS THE OVERSEER?!"
As if in answer to his plea, the wall at the far end of the hall—the one covered in profit graphs—collapsed with a thunderous crash. Standing in the breach was Him. The Grey Golem. The Overseer of Ring Zero. This time he looked even more imposing, as if he had actually grown in size. The deletion energy humming around his hammer distorted the very air.
"REPEAT OFFENDERS DETECTED," his voice, like the grinding of millstones, filled the hall. "YOUR EXISTENCE HAS BEEN DEEMED A CRITICAL ERROR. PROTOCOL ‘TOTAL FORMATTING’ ACTIVATED."
The Designer Shadows bolted in all directions with undignified shrieks, diving under desks and behind whiteboards, completely forgetting their graphs and metrics.
"Run!" Lena commanded, sliding her helmet back on. "We can't beat him here!"
They bolted across the hall, overturning boards filled with brilliant monetization plans and leaping over beanbags. A heavy strike echoed from behind.
THUD!
The Overseer slammed his hammer into the floor. A wave of deletion energy rolled through the hall, erasing everything in its path—desks, computers, hidden Shadows. Everything was reduced to nothingness.
"He’s tearing down the level!" Rollo shouted, bolting ahead of everyone with his thrusters glowing. "Move it! To the central core! There should be a lift to the Administrator!"
They burst out of the game design department into a wide, sterile corridor leading to the centre of the Tower. The Overseer didn't let up. He walked through walls, through obstacles. Inevitable. Every step he took shook the entire building.
"We’re not going to make it!" Nate looked back. The grey figure was only fifty metres away and closing fast. "He’ll catch us before we reach the lift!"
"We need to slow him down!" Lena scanned the corridor as she ran. "Ira! Can you put up a wall?"
"I'll try!" Irina skidded to a halt, spun around, and slammed her staff into the floor. "DRAGON’S BARRIER: WALL OF ETERNAL FLAME!"
A wall of golden fire erupted from the floor, sealing the corridor from floor to ceiling. The heat was so intense the plastic panels on the walls began to melt. The Overseer approached the wall of fire.
"MAGICAL ANOMALY. DELETION."
He simply stepped into the fire. The flames, which could have incinerated an army, flowed around his grey suit without doing a lick of damage. He raised his hammer and struck the wall of fire. It shattered into sparks.
"It didn't work!" Irina cried in despair.
"My turn!" Nate ripped every remaining grenade from her belt—plasma, frag, EMP. She bundled them together. "Have a little present, Grandad!"
She hurls the bundle at the Overseer’s feet.
KABOOM!
The explosion was gargantuan. The corridor vanished behind a veil of smoke and plasma. They reached the end of the hall. Before them loomed the massive gold doors of a lift, decorated with a stylized letter ‘A’. The Administrator’s private lift.
"Rollo, call it!" Lena shouted.
The hedgehog hammered at the call button. "It’s coming! But it’s slow! It’s a posh lift, it doesn't do 'hurry'!"
The Overseer emerged from the smoke. He was unscathed. Not a single scratch. He simply adjusted the tie on his grey suit.
"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. YOUR DATA WILL BE ERASED."
He was ten metres away. He raised the hammer for a final blow. The lift doors began to slide open slowly with a melodic chime.
"Inside!" Lena practically shoved Irina and Nate into the car, grabbed Rollo by the scruff of the neck, and dived in herself.
She hammered the 'close doors' button. The doors began to slide shut. The Overseer was on the threshold. He swung. The hammer flew straight toward the closing gap.
CLANG!
The doors slammed shut a fraction of a second before impact. The hammer hit the metal outside, leaving a massive dent that bulged through the inner wall. The lift car shuddered, and the lights flickered. But they were inside. And the lift was moving. Upwards.
"Phew..." Nate slid down the wall of the car. "Did we... did we lose him?"
"For now," Lena said, staring at the dent in the door. "He won't stop. Но where we’re going, he might not have access."
The lift was luxurious. Gold, velvet, classical music. It rose smoothly and rapidly. The floor indicator blurred past: 800... 900... 999...
"Floor one thousand," Rollo whispered. "The summit. The penthouse of the God of this game."
The lift stopped. A melodic chime.
"Arriving at the Administration floor. Please have your passes and a positive attitude ready."
The doors opened.
They had expected a throne room. Or a mission control centre. Or a villain’s lair with laser-sharks. But before them lay a simple corridor. It was short, with expensive parquet flooring and oil paintings on the walls (landscapes, not a naked elf in sight). At the end of the corridor was a single door. Plain, wooden, made of dark oak. No guards, no turrets.
On the door hung a small brass plaque:
THE ADMINISTRATOR. (Consultations by appointment only. Knock three times. No entry for glitches.)
They approached the door. It was quiet. Absolutely silent. All the noise and chaos of the Tower felt like it was miles below.
"Right then," Lena said, removing her helmet and looking at her friends.
They had been through hell. They had been beaten, humiliated, stripped, and almost erased. But they were standing here. In their true armour. Ready to ask the big question.
"Who’s knocking?" Nate asked, straightening her tricorne.
"I am," Irina stepped forward. She was the Priestess. It was her role to speak with the higher powers.
She raised her hand and knocked three times, firmly, against the oak door. Silence. Then, a voice came from behind the door. The same voice they had heard in the volcano. The tired, slightly annoyed voice of the Bloke in the Dressing Gown.
"It’s open. Come in. But if you’re from IT support about the printer again, I’m going to annihilate the lot of you."
Irina took hold of the heavy bronze handle, turned it, and pushed. The door swung open, flooding the corridor with a brilliant white light from within.