Ymara’s Bargain

The wood floor Asterion was sprawled against was rather uncomfortable, and he was having a hard time trying to remember why he would want to take a nap on it. After continuing to lie on the ground for a few minutes, he finally pulled together the strength to get to his feet. He slowly stood up, searching his brain for answers.

His vision was still fuzzy and it was hard to make out his surroundings, but eventually he remembered the fall and his many head injuries. He must have fainted, he realized. Should I call a doctor? he wondered as he rubbed at his head, only to realize that there wasn’t any pain or even a bump of any kind. He would’ve thought a fall like that would have left some mark.

“Asterion!” a voice called. Had someone found his avatar while he was unconscious? He had thought no one could enter his inn room other than him, but some player was clearly calling his name.

“Sorry, I was AFK,” Asterion said to the mystery player, rubbing his eyes to try to clear them which caused him to notice his glasses were missing. Was that why he couldn’t see anything?

Asterion got down on his knees and started patting around to find his glasses. As he searched, he noticed something was wrong. The bed was in the wrong place, and his desk was nowhere to be found. He definitely wasn’t in his bedroom, so where was he?

“Asterion,” the voice called again. It didn’t sound like it was coming from his speaker but from inside the room.

He looked in the direction the voice seemed to be coming from, just in time for his vision to come perfectly into focus. Now that things were no longer fuzzy, he could confirm that he was definitely not in his room. In fact, the room looked almost like his inn room in WanderQuest…

“Greetings, hero!” the voice said, and Asterion realized it belonged to the man looming over him. He was buff, blond, and definitely the person that had given Asterion the quest before he’d passed out. What was going on? “I am Ymara, the god of WanderQuest. You have accepted my bargain to defeat the Demon Lord, so I have brought you here!”

Asterion was silent for a moment. Finally he got to his feet and, already knowing the answer, said, “And where is ‘here’ exactly?”

Ymara spread his arms wide and said, “WanderQuest, of course!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Asterion said numbly. He couldn’t feel his arms and thinking felt like wading through molasses. Was he going into shock? “Umm, pretend I don’t know anything. Could you explain exactly what’s going on?”

Ymara’s magnanimous expression slipped slightly into one that looked slightly annoyed, like he was used to having to explain this even though he didn’t see why he should have to. “Would you like the long version or the short version?”

“The long version,” Asterion replied as he guided himself to the bed. He was starting to lose feeling in his legs, and he didn’t know how much worse he was going to feel once Ymara was finished explaining.

“Then I shall start from the very beginning,” Ymara decided. “Everything in this world has a god and demon assigned to it. Cars, cellphones, hair pins, anything you can think of. WanderQuest is no different. When the game launched, I formed, and so did a demon. Any worship we receive, even unintentionally, makes both of us more powerful, and now that WanderQuest has become one of the most popular games in the world, we’ve both become very strong. Herein is where the problem lies.

“Gods are beholden to their domain. I am the god of WanderQuest, and I will continue to exist in this game until it has lost its last worshiper. Demons, however, can gain enough power to leave their domain and Transcend. While the Demon Lord and I are physically unable to interact with each other, I have still been able to learn a few things about him, including the fact that he wants to Transcend from the game into the real world and enslave humanity. Since we cannot attack each other, I have chosen you as my champion to defeat him.”

There was a minute of silence as Asterion processed what he’d learned. “Why me?” was the first question he could think of.

Ymara smiled, and Asterion couldn’t help but feel like it was a little patronizing. “Isn’t it obvious? You are the best player in the game, you have the highest level out of every player, and you’ve generated more worship for me than anyone else. Do you know how many people have joined this game just so they could meet you? Do you know how much money has been spent on merchandise with your character on it?” People were selling merch with his face on it? “All of that worship has made the Demon Lord stronger, but it has also made me stronger too. Strong enough to bring the best player into the game.”

Asterion supposed that made sense. But defeating the Demon Lord? Almost every player in the game had heard stories about the attempts players had made, but none had ever come close to succeeding. There were endless rumors circulating the game about what defeating the Demon Lord could provide, anywhere from incredibly rare loot to becoming the ‘King of WanderQuest’—whatever that meant—and that had spurred countless groups to ask Asterion for help. He had never tried to defeat the Demon Lord, though. It sounded like players couldn’t even reach the castle the Demon Lord resided in, and while Asterion knew he was probably better than all those players combined, it still felt like an impossible feat after so many failed attempts.

“Why do you think I can do it?” Asterion asked, voicing his thoughts. “No one has ever even come close before.”

Ymara sighed again, although this time it didn’t feel directed at Asterion. “After WanderQuest really started to gain popularity, the Demon Lord worried someone might actually be strong enough to defeat him. Like I said, this is our domain, so if a player killed him in the game he really would have died. But with all that worship, he had gained enough power to alter the code of the game. He created a glitch so that no player could kill him. When they get too close to the castle, their character dies immediately and respawns them as far from the castle as possible.”

If it’s physically impossible to kill the Demon Lord then what am I supposed to do? Asterion thought. He was just about to say it out loud when Ymara continued.

“But I have some powers he doesn’t,” he said with a devilish grin. “Demons only gain worship from humans because they were once humans too. Gods, however, are born when their domain is created. It’s all we have ever known, and while we may be stuck in our domain forever, we gain worship from everything in our domain.

“I have brought you into the game, which has turned you into an NPC. You may feel just like you always have, but you are technically no longer human. You are now a part of the code that makes up this game. Since demons only have power over humans, the Demon Lord can only manipulate the code that affects players, meaning he can’t touch you. His glitch won’t stop you from entering his castle, allowing you to kill him.”

It was a lot for Asterion to take in. He was having a hard enough time accepting that he was apparently inside a video game, but to learn that he wasn’t even human anymore?

Ymara must have mistaken the apprehension on Asterion’s face, because he added, “Don’t worry! You will be properly rewarded for your troubles. Usually, us gods choose the blessing we want to grant because giving that much power to a human tends to end poorly. Since you are doing such a difficult task, saving the lives of myself and every human in the real world, I will let you choose the blessing yourself. The scope of a blessing is dependent on how much worship someone has given me, but you would be doing me such a big favor that the worship will be enough for you to wish for anything you want.”

Anything I want? That was appealing. But could he really defeat the Demon Lord?

Ymara’s gaze softened as he finally realized why Asterion was worried. “I chose you, Asterion, because you were the best candidate. I… I don’t want to worry you, but you need to know what exactly rests on your shoulders. If the Demon Lord is allowed to Transcend, he will be one of the most powerful demons to ever roam the earth. I know him, I know his ambition and his greed. He wants to enslave everyone in the world, including your friends and family. He also sees me as a threat and will want to get rid of me. The only way to kill a god is to stop worshiping them, but if he were in control of every human in the world, he could easily end all worship until I fade into oblivion. No worship means no one playing the game and no reason for WanderQuest to continue functioning. He would shut down the game. And as you are now part of the game, you would disappear with it.”