The final chapter opens on the four people who have “lived” as the characters of the previous three chapters—who only now understand they’ve been living in a simulation the entire time.
They find themselves trapped inside a rapidly disintegrating room as the simulation destabilizes, grappling with what to do now. The other people who have been living in the same simulation—Syd Koncorda, Arnold Bolton, and Meghan Duscalla—are also trapped here, along with the god-like being Xentalia who finally showed them all the truth.
Ronny, formerly Arlow/Rooney/Aranwe, searches for a way out of the glitching room and pushes through the walls, only to find a void beyond it. He begins to fall, but is stopped by Samantha—formerly Disenna/Kyuri/Sae. Xentalia explains to them all the simulation is glitching because it’s panicking; it’s a living thing, programmed to trap creatures that don’t belong on other worlds and “deal with them” as it deems appropriate.
Xentalia tries to explain what to do next, but a scream interrupts her. A metal spike pierces through Arnold and drags him out of the room into the void. Another spike aims for Meghan, but Syd intercepts it and is dragged away instead. As the other decide what to do, Meghan is ultimately impaled by a third spike and dragged away as well.
Ronny finds the cat Iraga sitting on one of the glitching walls. Two more spikes aim for Dom (formerly Touse/Domus/Indomitus) and Ronny, but Xentalia blocks them with her own body. As more spikes impale her she tells them to look for a button in the floor, which Samantha finds. Another voice interrupts them, apologizing for keeping them all waiting. They find a humanoid man whose skin bears a resemblance to the metal spikes that have been dragging people away; it's the manifestation of the Akrellix Dyalla.
He goes on to say he was trying to “procure” an item that would make his goal easier. The others notice he’s wielding Karavox. He says they were never the targets, but Xentalia *was*, and because the others were with her, they are “accessories” to be dealt with. By attacking their avatars, he can kill them directly. Samantha asks why he’s doing this, to which he explains Xentalia will “unmake the world” if left alone. Xentalia counters that the entity speaking to them is damaged, acting from limited knowledge based on a prophecy from prehistory.
A fifth and final spike impales Xentalia, dragging her off into the void. The being in front of them says this will make killing the rest of them easier. Samantha asks him to reconsider, but he responds that there’s a “95.99% chance” the party will damage his hardware further if they are allowed to live. Eyelean, formerly Nuria/Chonnnk/Eloise Merhermbler, quips “So you’re saying there’s a chance…?”
All at once, Ronny and Eyelean both try to tackle the Akrellix Dyalla avatar while Dom—thinking it’s a better option to take their chances with the void—tackles Ronny. Dom is unprepared for Ronny’s sudden movement and winds up tripping the other man, who careens into Eyelean until they all careen off course and tumble to the floor. As they try to sort themselves out, a red-hued beam hits the ground in front of them. They see it’s a D4.
The die immediately shatters, a piece of it hitting Karavox and causing it to vanish. Other shards fly off into the void. The metallic being laments not killing them faster, saying “This got harder.” As it speaks, five more beams hit the ground, and five more dice are now hovering in the air. The Akrellix Dyalla comments this has now become a fair fight, and he reaches up to touch the floating D20 before saying he has an axe to find and vanishing.
Dom reaches out and touches the D8, the Emotion Knight paragon. His clothing changes from a simple duster and jeans into formfitting plate armor and a cape. Being a writer, he pulls his pen out of his pocket and touches the D8 with it as well, and the pen turns into a spear. The spear immediately starts talking, telling Dom to “get hype.”
The rest of the party reacts to the spear with various levels of amusement and enthusiasm. Ronny eventually asks the spear what we’re supposed to do, to which the spear responds “Grab the dice and get happy!” Ronny touches the D6, the Fool paragon, in front of him. His clothes change from a green-striped baseball tee and tan cargo shorts into something similar, but now has a cape and archer gloves. The D6 is embedded into his left shoulder.
Samantha is still looking for a way out. She asks if Ronny is okay, to which he says he’s fine. Eyelean decides the D12 is a boring shape and reaches instead for the D10, the Neo paragon. Her clothes shift from a mismatched tank top and long shorts (in obnoxiously loud hues of orange, purple and red) to a more pleasant color palette of white and blue with a pattern that reflects the constellations. The D10 is embedded into the corner of her left eye. She hears a voice in her head: “Systems now online. Fair Field access granted.” She glances around to see if anyone heard the voice like they heard the spear, but only she can hear it.
Samantha finds a door with sounds coming from the other side of it. She reaches for the last die, the D12—the Godbinder paragon. Her neutral-hued dress and cardigan are now gleaming in prismatic greens and golds. The world seems to drain of color as a blonde, fair-skinned woman in a yellow dress appears in front of her. Samantha recognizes her as the woman who helped “Kyuri” and the others back when they were trying to put Karavox back together. The woman smiles, saying “Good, you’re awake.”
The woman introduces herself as Lillix, and informs Samantha the Godbinder can “speak with the gods”. In this situation, Lillix acts as the goddess of light. She goes on to explain the creatures outside the door died here, and her recommendation is not to become one of them.
The door cracks. Dom uses his uncanny danger sense to realize this is, indeed, dangerous. He decides to open the door to face the danger head-on. Eyelean and Ronny press themselves against the wall on either side of the door in preparation.
Lillix tells Samantha the Akrellix Dyalla wasn’t designed to allow the people inside to leave. However, with the addition of the dice provided by her “friend” on the outside, if all players agree, they would be allowed to leave. She amends that by saying all *living* players; “the dead don’t get a vote.” She vanishes, and the door bursts open.
Twisted, broken humanoid shapes shamble just beyond the door. Eyelean backs up and readies herself to shoot the first thing that crosses the threshold. Ronny manages to cave in the chest cavity of one of them as they push forward. He notices they look like a strange the of zombie with metal and wires embedded into them.
Dom finishes off the first attacker with his new spear and pierces the next one. The zombie-like creature pushes the one Dom killed out of the way and reaches for him. Dom quickly realizes the twisted figure in front of him is his brother. It attacks him, but he deflects the blow.
Samantha backs up and raises a hand towards the creature attacking Dom. Light erupts and sets the creature on fire, killing it, as well as setting the one behind it ablaze. Eyelean shoots it, killing it immediately. She notices something glimmering in the bodies of the fallen humanoids. The fourth and final zombie shambles forward to attack Dom, but Eyelean downs that one as well. There are no more creatures right away, but all four people can hear screeching from somewhere nearby.
The glimmering in the bodies turns out to be golden coins. Eyelean hears the same voice she heard earlier: “Fair gold detected. Would you like to activate the energy gun?” A slot in her wrist opens, and she inserts one of the coins. A sniper rifle appears in her hands. Eyelean asks if the voice in her head has a name, to which it only responds it’s the “Neo System built to access the Fair Field.” It then informs her that there are many Fair Field influences detected that are rapidly approaching their location—at which point three enormous claw marks tear through the walls.
Eyelean inserts a second coin into the slot, and the Neo system informs her that “overcharge” is now available for her gun. A third coin confirms a double-overcharge. At this point Dom sees the claws coming through the wall and astutely determines via his uncanny danger sense that this is, in fact, a dangerous situation.
Eyelean asks Dom if his spear takes coins, to which the spear itself retorts: “F*ck your coins, only happiness!”
The group dashes through the now empty hallway and up a stairwell, which shifts from wood to stone as they ascend. Light appears above them, and they eventually realize it’s bioluminescent light from mushrooms along the walls—reminiscent of the mushrooms found in the amphitheater in prehistoric times. In fact, as they exit the stairwell, they find themselves in that same amphitheater where System Agnostic first began…and they hear a familiar growl in the darkness beyond.
