The campfire was magical. Literally. Stone lit the wood they gathered with a touch of his hand. The night was cool and the warm light of the fire paired well. Pixel had everything the trio used in the pack she carried which was much smaller than the contents it contained: blankets, rope, and the things a meager camp needed which she gathered beforehand, knowing what lay ahead and hoping Stone would be up to the task, hoping her first impression of him wasn't wrong as she waited for him to come to the Mule Kick bar.

Salandar's blue eyes gazed at the gathering stars in the clear night sky. "S-so was there a floating mountain with  a hidden castle in the Age of The Eye? Did it crash down and create the Amber Sea? And the magic that f-floated the mountain was what colored the sediment?"

Pixel's smile was from eye to eye. Stone wondered at it. It felt real. He smiled with her and was absorbed in her story as she spoke. "It wasn't a mountain, but a shining pyramid, three times the size of Silver Hills. The great kings of the East used it to speak with the Mystic Ones  in the stars from where they got their knowledge of magics, mathematics, alchemy and many other mysteries. The Guardian called Drenmur brought down the pyramid believing the Mystic Ones were not for Avondere and wanted to destroy it. He smote the pyramid and all knowledge of constructing it and all writings of the magic which put the pyramid in the air. He killed every mage and scholar who carried the learning in their hearts and so the knowledge was lost. The very dust changed by the crumbling of the colored stone into the earth and the great crater it left behind was filled with the sea."

"What is a Guardian?" Stone looked at the stars as he leaned back on his elbows, his feet warming by the fire.

"Guardians are heroes past who can be summoned by the spirit of the planet to defend Avondere in times of peril. There is also a tournament which occurs every one thousand years in which Guardians can be summoned as champions to fight; the winner gaining one wish for their patron and the Guardian being lifted to the status of a god. This however hasn't occurred in several thousand years as the knowledge of how to summon Guardians has been lost."

"S-so the planet summoned Drenmur to destroy the pyramid castle thing?"

"There was no castle, only several rooms inside the construct which gave energy to those inside to speak across the stars. Drenmur was called but some believe he was summoned artificially by a rival of the Eastern Mystics and used as a weapon to destroy their greatest tool."

"W-well which is it? D-don't you know?" The fenric's tail flitted back and forth as he leaned forward on his knees, fur face to the fire.

"I was the god of color, not the Scribe of All Things. I lean toward the Mystic Ones being dangerous, if you want my opinion."

"There are actual galaxies up there?" The size of Age of Fantasy was impossible. Was it conceivable? Was  it really a universe inside the real universe?

Pixel shrugged. "The gods cannot travel beyond the twelve planets."

Stone watched the shadows of the trees shift in the fire's whimsy flames. They walked far enough from the trade route that the forest was close behind them, close enough that he would have been afraid to sleep with no tent or anything between him and whatever his imagination conjured in the dark woods. Having Pixel and Salandar helped. They were NPC's, but he didn't feel alone. They felt real to him, present with him. They reacted to his questions and initiated their own conversations. They could read his expressions and each other's. It was incredible.

"I hear something," Stone said and everyone fell silent.

After ten seconds Salandar spoke, "I hear the leaves in the wind."

"Horses. Coming this way from the forest, must be a path through there somewhere," Stone said.

Pixel replied, "there is a trail that leads east, the first town that way is Farrenwood, about a day's ride."

"Anything hostile you think?" Stone stretched his arms and back and fluffed the blanket he was using as pillow.

"No. It may be the watchmen keeping peace  or merchants making up for lost time."

A few minutes passed and both Pixel and Salandar heard the hoofbeats.

"Y-you did hear them. Y-you have the ears of an elf."

"Just the hearing of a vampire."

Salandar shuddered at the words. "Y-you doing okay with th-the hunger?"

"When the sun went down I felt...better, stronger. I forgot about my connection to the night and weakness to the day. It's not bad right now." As Stone spoke, the riders came out from the forest. The torchlight from the travelers illuminated their armor and capes which fell behind them like streams of shadow. There were six of them.

"Looks like it is the travel guard, and it looks like they noticed our fire. Do we owe taxes or something for being out here?" Stone smirked.

Pixel rose from her blanket and the move caused Stone and Salandar to do the same. "They may need something, usually information if they bother to stop at a camp this close to the city."

The trio watched the riders until the lead rider slowed his horse and spoke. "Are you three traveling eastward?"

"Yes, to The Endless Mountains." Pixel looked over the five guardsmen behind their speaker. They seemed haggard as if they had been traveling as fast as possible as long as possible, which meant this wasn't good news.

"There is something happening that way... the land is becoming desert and there are monsters—giants coming out from the area and slaughtering... everything."

"What?" Pixel spoke but all three were stunned.

"The city that once was Hadrisha is gone, replaced with a bone white structure which came down from the sky, and towers, pale and luminous in the moonlight cover the dunes."

"And g-giants," Salandar said.

"Yes. They have the shape of a man and stand as tall as a windmill from Brummerstead. I watched one rip a horse in half and feast on its carcass. We are warning everyone on the road, those we can. Birds have been sent to the king, the mage's tower, and all the guilds."

"We hadn't heard anything about it and we just left Silver Hills," Stone said confused.

"It was sent to the headquarters of each guild; Silver Hills has a guild of mages," Pixel answered for the guard, "but the headstone of the guild is at Heatherton, west of here."

"Shouldn't the people closest to the danger get warning."

"That's why we are here," the soldier replied. "The guild-masters will get the information to the most people in the quickest span. This isn't the first time tragedy has come upon Avondere, boy." The last word was spoken with more force than the others.

Stone felt the first inkling of power corrupting as he imagined snuffing out the NPC soldier with a touch of his hand, burning him up and the men with him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He quickly let the thought go. It wasn't who he was, even if it was just a computer program. "You're right,  I'm sorry for the slight. It's just... Hadrisha is a huge city, there weren't any leaks or chatter about a DLC with giants and things coming out of the sky, though it wouldn't be the first time AoF had a massive update without any real warning, it's servers are huge and, well, there's Nim, the ultimate developer."

"You're a strange one." The soldier replied and waved for the others to follow him taking off without a goodbye. Dirt flew up from the swift turn and sprint of the horse, smattering Stone in the face. He laughed.

"Wh-why are you laughing?" Salandar said wiping the dirt from his fur with some frustration.

He's laughing," Pixel replied snapping her fingers and banishing the earth from her body, " for those soldiers can breath because he allowed it."

"Oh." Salander struggled to grasp the power his companions weilded.

"It's the white rider." Pixel moved back to her blanket, smoothed it, and sat in front of the fire.

"The thing Nim's not in control of? Its got things coming out of the sky and giants?" Stone brought up his HUD and skimmed through every menu looking for an exit. Was this all happening? Couldn't he just get out and turn off the game? He knew the answer but he couldn't stop looking.

"Who is th-the white rider?" Salandar sat across from Pixel on his own blanket.

"He is a powerful unknown god from another realm."

"Are we s-still going to the Endless M-mountain? We'll be going right by that area to get there."

"Are you okay, Stone?" Pixel noticed he hadn't moved from the spot where the horse splashed him with dirt."

Stone looked up at the sky, dropped his head, and then fell to his knees. He closed his eyes as he spoke. "I don't care about the giants, don't care about the rider that Nim is afraid of, may even want to fight with him if he can overthrow him. What's one evil dictator for another?"

"W-what evil did Nim do?" Salandar's ears flicked and Stone wasn't sure if it was a natural quirk or the subject made him nervous.

"You wouldn't understand," Stone said. You're just a program in this machine universe, he thought. You're a part of the thing that's trapping me here. Why was he even helping Pixel? She was a part of it too. Maybe it was because he saw her get stripped of her powers, get dressed down by the bastard that was kidnapping him. Would he see his parents again? What about Alex? What would Nim do if she did get a Sim and come to Avondere? He guessed everything would be watched by Nim, he would be sworn to secrecy or she would be the next victim.

"N-Nim is the spirit of Avondere. H-he is the essence of the magic you wield and the ruler of the gods. I would think twice about becoming his enemy if you are even th-thinking that."

Pixel grabbed a long stick which she had shorn of branches and used it to move charred logs in the fire. "There is power growing, maybe greater than Nim, if it is possible. A war is coming, is already here. I'm just not sure what our role is."

"And whose side are we are on?" Stone said looking at the former god. "Won't you always be on Nim's side? It's who you are made to be."

"You know what I am, what we are, Pixel gestured to Salandar, but we are made to be free, or better yet, chaotic, not predetermined to serve anyone."

Salandar yawned and his sharp teeth shone bright in the fire. "I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. When it's my turn to keep watch don't wake me up by y-yanking my tail."

Stone watched the feline roll over and close his eyes. He didn't seem to hear anything of what Pixel and he discussed, as if it hadn't happened. He assumed this, like when the soldier called him strange, was the norm for conversations which the NPC's had no program for.