I shook off the emo thoughts. Mopey doesn't get things done. I took another look through the wall into the resort area. There were plenty of lower-star Awakened in there. You could spot the simpler costumes and repetitive movements. They weren’t the majority. To my quiet shock, most of the playing Awakened Souls were Six Stars.

  “Does the Star rating of the Awakened affect how much their stay costs?”

  “No,” said Raven the Receptionist shaking her covid head, “Flat rate for everyone.”

  If their stay cost the same amounts, send the ones most likely to be hired out. Maybe you just defray your costs, maybe you actually turn a profit. Smart. Or at least, not stupid.

  “So… I can meet my fellow Tower Masters here?” I tried to sound casual. Raven didn’t appear to care.

  “We take guest comfort and privacy very seriously. Particularly the comfort and privacy of our higher medallion members. You will not meet other members of the Manor.”

  Well there was dialog with lots of little hooks in it. I kept watching the Awakened at play. A lot of them were just lying on recliners and chatting. They didn’t have to eat or sleep and they never got tired. If the Manor was anything like the Tower, they wouldn’t get bored either. They would just exist. But here, they wouldn’t be lonely, and they could go surfing in the surf pool, or shoot pool, or join a betting pool.

  They had a library. I was desperately curious to see what books they had.

  “Any chance I could borrow books from the library?”

  “We get asked that a lot. Regrettably, that is not available to you at this time.”

  Swear to Christ, if I need to upgrade my membership with IRL currency-

  “How do I upgrade my membership?”

  “You can find more medallions in relic sites if you are lucky, or you can speak with our butler, Crowe, about purchasing access to the higher levels.”

  “Runed bones?”

  “Sir jokes.”

  “Frozen Diamonds?”

  “We use them in the chandeliers, not for commerce.”

  “Because you are in the end-game area on the map, and don’t care about the most basic ‘premium’ currency.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you are referring to.” Raven looked sharp in her grey dress. It was a timeless sort of design, demure yet flattering. With her one eyed crow head poking out of the collar. She kept her desk tidy too. A thick, leatherbound leger with neat handwriting in a language I couldn’t read. An elegant pen holder made of aged brass. A soft green felt covering the rich mahogany wood. Frankly, I felt like I was lowering the tone of the place simply by existing within fifty yards of her desk.

  I could feel my sanity meter falling, which I suppose justified her looking at me like I was the crazy one here. Downton Abbey with one eyed crow-heads for staff, and I’m the crazy one. Not crazy like a fox, just crazy.

  “I don’t suppose there is more to the Manor for Two Medallion members than just your desk?

  “Oh yes.”

  “And it would be?”

  “We encourage our members to explore. A sense of mystery and discovery is one of the premier benefits of Alshom Hall.”

  “Of course.”

  I started walking off when I noticed a group of Awakened moving around inside the glass wall. They came in a clump of ten, but immediately split up and started making their way around. They would stop and talk to each group they passed. They were easy to spot- they all were the same Awakened. Maybe a Level Three or Four, judging by how lively they looked.

  “What are they doing?”

  “We respect our guest’s privacy, Sir. Quite strictly, you may be sure. So long as there is no violence or harm to the Hall, it’s simply not our business.”

  They weren’t chatting, exactly. They walked up to a group, said something, listened, then walked away. After a few minutes, they gathered together again and marched off. I waited a few more minutes, but the pattern didn’t repeat.

  Raven had given me a lot to think about. I looked around again. There were two branching hallways. The manor looked enormous on the map, but they were still using some kind of space manipulation to make it even bigger on the inside. Just from what I could see through the glass and the signs posted, the Awakened resort had to be the size of the Mall of America or something.

  No signs anywhere outside the Awakened Resort, of course. That would reduce the sense of exploration. I set off again, quickly losing track of how far I was walking.

  My sense of time had frayed badly. It had been going on for quite some time, of course. It was the way time managed to both pass and not-pass. For example, I had a relic site to get back to. A raid to launch. The enemy was already reaching its claws towards Verton, and it was all going to collapse if I didn’t step in and save the day.

  And it would stay that way, until I was ready for it.

  My Six Stars were out there, figuring out their own takes on Versai’s exploit. They were learning and doing, but from the broader world’s perspective, no time was passing. I was experiencing time here. Time and space are one, right? Well, I was moving through space, so I must be moving through time. I’m thinking thoughts and creating memories. My subjective time is passing. But for everyone else? For the greater “world?”

  I had had the idea that each plane was its own space, and as such, experiencing its own time. Since everyone was seeing and experiencing it from an outside perspective, the entire existence of my demiplane stretched like a ribbon they could touch or examine at any point. It felt a bit fatalistic, but that’s how things work, right? Time and space are a single piece, so if you are standing completely outside of space, then you must be standing completely outside of time too.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  It’s kind of how I imagined the TARDIS working, and why the Doctor literally didn’t see the universe the same way his companions did. If you can see or touch all of time, the only chronology that mattered was your own. “How long something took” was simply a meaningless question.

  But what if that wasn’t how this place operated? What if, instead of iterating endlessly on each new demi-plane, there was only one Manor, and each time I visited, I was allocated a single unit of Planck Time. Such an impossibly microscopic moment that my entire visit would be imperceptible to anyone else who happened to be visiting ‘at the same time.’

  The Manor would maintain a single coherent chronology experienced by the staff and Awakened, but their subjective time would be altered by whatever force kept us sane. And us visitors would experience our single blazing instant and vanish. Unable to communicate, as our too-slow neurons wouldn’t even register the existence of anyone else in the time when we both existed here.

  I don’t know if any of that made sense. Maybe it was gas fumes from the ‘period authentic’ lighting. It wasn’t horrifying. It was just awe. Awe at the scale of it all. There were a couple of overstuffed club chairs next to a little table, angled to give those seated a good view of a portrait across the hall. I sat. Just taking a minute to be boggled by it all.

  Maybe it wasn’t that deep. Maybe, instead of playing with time and perception and manipulating the very fabric of reality, they were on some “A wizard did it” crap. It would be an awful lot simpler.

  The portrait was dreary- a brown background behind a man in Shakespere-era clothes complete with neck ruffle. The man had a crow head and only one eye, naturally. It was life size too. But somehow, even with all that, it looked like the crummy background art that they put on the walls in Playstation era RPG’s.

  I’m being too harsh. With how brown everything is, it could be a PS3 era game.

  “Not much art on the walls. Trophies, weapons, but not a lot of art. Boy I would be soooooo surprised if this picture hid a secret. Just so, so surprised. Just big time-”

  “Yes, yes, alright, you figured it out, but what secret, eh? Can you even activate the hidden mechanism? HMM? Not so cocky now, are you?” The man in the picture turned towards me and glared.

  “A secret other than the man in the picture is alive?”

  “HAH! Fooled you! I am NOT alive! I am a ghost!”

  “If J.K. Rowling could find a process server out here, you would be in so much trouble right now.”

  “Nonsense! I am the trouble. Have been for longer than your whole family has been alive.”

  I nodded politely. “Sure, sure. I don’t suppose your name is also Crowe?”

  “A modern mutilation of a fine old name. But I won’t tell you my name. It is a secret.”

  I nodded respectfully. “Corvus?”

  “NO!”

  I waited.

  “Who ratted me out?”

  “I am a man of hidden depths.” The table was empty and there weren’t any candle holders near the picture. I stood and pushed the chair I had been sitting on. It didn’t move backwards. I pushed one side, then the other. Eventually I got it to turn outward a little bit and face the opposite wall directly. Then I did the same with the other chair.

  “Impossible! Impossible! One of the others must have told you or given you a hint!”

  I’m demoting this area to a PS2 Era game, and it has only itself to blame. I don’t even know if this qualifies as a puzzle by mobile game standards. The section of wall with Corvus on it opened up into a doorway and a dark hall. I walked in fearlessly, because why the hell not.

  I nearly jumped out of my shoes when Corvus started following me. He just stepped out of the picture as I walked past.

  “Really, nobody told me. I just figured it out.”

  “And guessed my name? I think not.”

  “I mean, how many other names could it possibly be?”

  “My cousin is named Corbeau, my father is named Krahe, and my artist niece is called Karasu, but you JUST HAPPENED to guess my name? I think not. I truly think not!”

  “Ever notice how many words for crows start with a Kah sound? I wonder if it’s after the sound crows make.”

  “Young man, you are speaking nonsense again.”

  “It happens. So where does this hallway lead?”

  “You will have to see for yourself.”

  It eventually led to a bedroom. There was a little single bed up against one wall, a window that was so dirty and fogged, I couldn’t see through it, and a little wardrobe. Not much else, it seemed. I snorted and got to searching.

  My hand bounced off the pillows. And the blankets. The whole bed, which looked utterly normal and maybe a little dusty, felt like touching a single solid piece of glass. Even if I leaned on it, nothing happened.

  The same thing happened with the wardrobe. It was open a crack, but when I tried to peek in, there was only perfect darkness. I checked under the bed. Despite the “dusty” top of the bed, the floor was clean enough to do major surgery on.

  “Hey, Corvus? Any chance you could pull back these sheets for me? Or maybe open the wardrobe?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Not a poltergeist?”

  “I’m not a menial.”

  Ghost snob was not on my… eh whatever year it is bingo card. God, what year was I snatched up in? It’s only been ‘twelve days’ but… Not important.

  I flung the random thoughts away and took another look around the room. There must be something, or there wouldn’t be a hidden path here.

  It must have been at least twenty-twenty, or even twenty twenty three, because I remember shows and games that came out around that time. Like, I’m not just remembering Sailor Moon or Neon Genesis Evangelion. No, no, fly away useless thoughts! I’m looking for clues here!

  I took another careful look around the room and didn’t see anything. I started rapping on the walls, wondering if there wasn’t a hidden compartment or another hidden door. Nothing. My eyes kept being pulled back to the bed. The bedframe was metal, painted white with brass knobs on posts coming up from the corners. They were tarnished and scuffed in keeping with the ‘dusty’ theme of the bed.

  I watched them for a few moments. Suddenly, there was a little gleam or twinkle on the front left post.

  “Got you. Not going to ask what light source it was reflecting there, as I suspect the answer will upset me.” I grabbed the nob, and it turned effortlessly in my hand. Turns out the bedknob was hollow. A little tap, and a rolled up slip of paper fell out. I couldn’t even sigh dramatically any more. I just unrolled it.

  A string of eight numbers. Out of sheer malice, I put the slip in my pouch. I tried to put the bedknob in too, but it wouldn’t go.

  “Hey Corvus? If I take this slip of paper, what happens to the next person who comes in here? Will they just find an empty bedknob?”

  “Why do you care? You will never know.”

  “I have a curious mind.”

  “Well I’m not going to tell you anyway.”

  “Corvus… why are you here? Is there anything you are going to tell me?”

  “Unfortunately, there is.” The ghost cleared its throat with frankly unnecessary theatricality. “Ah, her bedroom. We haven’t used it for years. Not since the incident.”

  I waited. “That’s it?”

  The ghost nodded. “That is it.”

  “Not going to elaborate on who “her” is or what “the incident” was?”

  “No. It’s back to the picture for me, I’m afraid. Although once I catch who ratted me out, I’ll make their lives a merry Hell, you may be sure of that.”

  The ghost turned and left the way he came. I found the other door out of the room. Locked, but the lock was on this side of the door. I was out into another anonymous hallway in a moment.

  I… don’t give a damn about a mystery. I don’t really give a damn about the dark secrets of the Hall. This reeks of added content intended to drive engagement and extend playtime. It takes up no order time, but you can sink a seemingly infinite amount of time solving puzzles that wouldn’t fool a third grader and playing spot the shiny. And the things they put front and center are aimed at Pay To Win players with an ungodly huge roster who are still looking to hire extra help to cheese levels or relic sites.

  As for cryptic hints about forbidden power? I’m going to say… a completely CGI (or equivalent) cut scene which has zero practical effects but gets me a special border to use in chat, and let’s be generous, maybe a “unique” weapon. All of which is going to start being locked behind problems or barriers that take premium currency to solve.

  This pattern is ancient. I’ve been sick of it for years now. I never stooped to paying then, and I’m not about to now. I opened my mouth to yell for Crowe but something stopped me. My hindbrain was furiously poking my front brain and telling it that it missed something. Something very obvious.

  I started reviewing everything I knew about this place. It seemed that every Tower Master, once they accumulated enough experience and did enough things, would gain access to it. You could park your Awakened here, as well as hire other peoples’. At the lowest level of entry, the Tower Masters wouldn’t meet. But the Awakened did, and they talked to each other. At least the Six Stars did. It looked like the lower tier ones were…

  “Oh. OOOOH!” I gave my forehead a hearty slap. “A good reminder that I’m not the only smart person. There are a lot of smart people out there, probably. The nightly waves worked as a brutal filter. You either paid to win, or you had to be lucky AND smart. And by wave twelve, the more-lucky-than-smart crowd would have thinned out a lot. Hard to get lucky twelve times in a row.”

  The real use of the Hall wasn’t to uncover whatever nonsense mystery was here, it was that rec center. You send in your Awakened, and start playing a game of Telephone. “Tell Tower Master Fink that I encountered a wandering goblin merchant in a cave. The merchant sells Goblin Figurines. If he wants one for the relic site, hire my Awakened- Short Stack.”

  Or something. I really don’t know what they were communicating about. Even if they could communicate, what could they coordinate? Were they revolutionaries? People involuntarily trapped her like me? Or had they bought their Nerve Gear and voluntarily jumped into Sword Art Online?

  Goddess protect me- did these guys think they were playing a full dive game? Surely not- there were far too many mobile game mechanics built in for that. No way they would be lying down in a bed with a fully immersive brain stimulation device just to watch a Tower Master fight a wave of monsters.

  Well. Just one way to find out. Now we have to ask the real questions. The hard questions. Questions like- which of my Six Stars could I spare for a day to investigate this place?