System Agnostic/Episode Five: Live or DIE

X Add worldbuilding credits now!

The final chapter of System Agnostic picks up in the present day museum of Paraska Manor, where a battle is taking place between the strangely metallic, shapeshifting little girl who’d visited the museum earlier that day, and the taller man wearing the holy symbol that once belonged to Eloise Merhermbler.

The fight passes by a familiar flower in the museum—the blood of chaos—where Aranwe resides. He decides to lend his power to the holy cleric, and his companion Vilya shoots thorny vines out from the plants that wrap around the girl.

As the combatants continue into the weapons display room and pass by Brodin’s spear, Domus chooses to stay a passive observer and not intervene. The fight goes on as the camera returns to the simulated world, where Eyelean, Ronny, Samantha and Dom now face down the being who first took them from Ravendean—the Akrellix Dyalla.

The walls of the simulation are pierced by the thorny vines of the blood of chaos flower, to which the AD takes note and remarks, “So that’s how we’re playing.”

Eyelean kicks off the battle by stepping in front of Arnold and Meghan, then slamming a translucent tower shield into the ground. Ronny pulls out his longbow and readies himself to shoot the AD, calling out that it doesn’t have to go this way—referring to releasing the bird from the simulation. Looking around, Ronny sees Iraga, the same cat they’ve all been dealing with since the simulation began.

Samantha readies herself to send a Healing Light to anyone that gets hurt, while Dom is still reeling from the realization he sacrificed his Hype Spear in his deal with The Fair and lost the chance to ever be happy again.

Dom approaches the AD and says, “Let’s get this over with,” before wondering aloud what it will take to kill the sentient machine. He comes to realize that a machine has no emotions, but the very act of feeling one might be enough to hurt it. The AD responds that the knowledge won’t matter, as two of the party members (Ronny and Samantha) have already made deals with The Fair and will not leave the simulation.

The Akrellix Dyalla seems to draw light from the D20 in its eye, forming an identical D20 that it crushes in its hand. A giant creature that seems to be wearing Eyelean’s face emerges from the ground; Eyelean, who has an identical twin named Andi, knows better.

As the creature’s twisted form becomes more visible, a massive version of Ronin’s head emerges, with the face of Samantha’s best friend Katelyn growing from the back of it. A strange sound comes from Meghan as she also seems her father’s face in the writhing mass. Dom notices its tail is comprised of his former Hype Spear.

One of the walls of the simulation is blown out, and a very angry Xentalia emerges from it with the dagger still in her leg. It’s unclear who she is going to attack. In the meantime, Eyelean expands the shield to protect the trio behind her and steps in front of it. She fires at the Akrellix Dyalla, throwing it off balance.

The chimera the AD summoned charges at Ronny and Dom, who are closest. Dom realizes one of its arms looks remarkably like Chonnnk’s, and it swipes at him, catching his armor.

Ronny turns his arrows on the chimera, but still approaches Iraga and begs them to save his bird. Iraga stands and stretches, kicking up a pebble that subsequently makes its way down to the chimera’s bear paw. It rears back, distracted by it.

Samantha closes her eyes and tries to cast Bless, managing to earn Lillix’s blessing on Eyelean, Dom…and Xentalia. Time slows, and Lillix steps out, commenting she hadn’t expected that. Samantha returns that she doesn’t know what Lillix has against the earth genasi, but Lillix claims she doesn’t have anything against Xentalia.

Lillix turns to ask seemingly no one if they want to explain it, and from the other side of the room a tiefling in leather armor steps up. Samantha recognizes both of them as the couple in the painting from the prehistoric temple.

The tiefling explains he wasn’t sure if Xentalia would be of clear mind when the time for battle arrived, and the blade “unlocks some memories” that would help. He admits Xentalia might be angry with them, and with Samantha as she was technically the conduit, but reminds Samantha that’s the price of making deals before they both disappear.

Xentalia glares at Samantha as she pulls the dagger out of her leg, but starts moving instead to join the other three members who bear the D4 shards. Dom tries to chop off the chimera’s Hype Spear tail; he fails, but does manage to catch it off balance.

In true villain style, the Akrellix Dyalla casts Fireball on everyone, injuring the entire party and destroying Eyelean’s shield.

The D4 members step forward in unison, lock eyes onto the chimera and cast Magic Missile on it, wounding it. Eyelean interposes herself between the D4 team and the chimera, activating the forcefield shield again.

The chimera tries to attack Dom with the Hype Spear tail, knocking him off balance but not injuring him. In the meantime, Iraga looks at Ronin, and Ronny can see the cat calculating and processing the deal Ronny made with The Fair: if Ronin stays, Ronny still can’t leave—but there’s a way that Ronny *can* leave the simulation. In a movement too fast for Ronny to react, Iraga leaps past him and swallows the bird, extending its jaws like a snake to devour it whole. A panicked Ronny tries to kick Iraga, trying unsuccessfully to get it to spit Ronin back out.

Xentalia manages to reach the other three D4 members and putter hands on their shoulders. Crystal tendrils wrap around their shoulders. Samantha shoots a Sun Blast at the chimera, burning it up from the inside out. In retaliation, the Akrellix Dyalla mimics Eyelean’s form and capabilities, constructing a version of her using the same light from the D20 as before.

The clone of Eyelean shoots a sniper rifle at the original one, wearing down the shield in front. Dom had been hoping to pick up his Hype Spear from the chimera’s remains, but it was burned up in the Sun Blast. Instead, he attempts to hug the Akrellix Dyalla in an attempt to make it feel emotions. He urges it to “let it all out”, but the AD makes it clear its only intention is to “kill the fool and the one who talks to gods.” Dom says he gave up his happiness to be a writer, and urges the AD to end the game and go home.

Dom feels a tap on his back, and the AD whispers in his ear that Dom didn’t have happiness before because he was “too stupid to realize where happiness comes from,” and he didn’t give up that happiness here in the simulation to become a successful writer—because he was never a successful writer to begin with. Dom reels from the pain of the AD’s Vicious Mockery.

Eyelean plants her shield in the ground and shoots at her clone, destroying their shield and forcing them to step aside. The clone returns fire, breaking the original Eyelean’s shield and killing her instantly.

Ronny tries reaching into Iraga’s throat to save Ronin, and the cat hocks up the bird in a ball of feathers—shaken, but alive.

Samantha weighs her options heavily, seeing Eyelean’s body on the ground, but reluctantly focuses instead on reaching out to any “dieties” in the simulation for help, acknowledging the party is outmatched. A voice sounds behind her, and Samantha knows it’s the tiefling from earlier. He says he can help her, but she’d be committing herself to the web of fate. She agrees, and suddenly gains insight into the fate of the larger world around her as she becomes an Avatar of Destiny. She turns to Dom and casts Healing Light, helping him recover a bit.

The Akrellix Dyalla again uses Vicious Mockery, telling Dom that success is easy if you set a bar for yourself, but Dom has no goals so he can’t possibly find success. Dom drops to his knees in tears, but chooses to use Creative Violence to take away the AD’s inability to feel. He feels completely drained of all emotion as that energy transfer to the AD. The machine starts to understand how the party feels about what it’s doing to them, lowering its guard. The D4 team takes advantage of this weakness, casting more magic missiles. The attack seems to be fatal, but at the last moment the D20 in its eye flares and the AD is whole once again.

Eyelean recalls her favorite smell being that of old musty Bibles from the pews of a church, but realizes she can’t smell anything anymore—save for the body odor of her friends. She can smell the blood in their veins, the pulse in their necks. And as a new Fallen, one thing is clear: she knows she can go home if she only kills one of them.

Unable to utilize her guns, but very much able to use her claws, Eyelean takes the opportunity to lunge at Samantha, felling her in a single blow. Killing Samantha causes Eyelean to return to her former self, and she’ll be able to leave the simulation.

Ronny casts Healing Touch on his bird Ronin, and asks Iraga why they would eat his best friend. Iraga hisses and claws at his shoulder where the D6 sits, dislodging it. The cat swallows Ronin again, this time with the D6, and Ronny comes to understand that trying to pull the bird out again will risk both of them getting stuck here. At least this way, if the fight ends soon, the bird has a chance of escaping the simulation inside Iraga’s stomach.

Seeing the Akrellix Dyalla still standing, Ronny attacks with his longbow. The AD seems to fall yet again, but reality seems to glitch and—once again—the machine stands untouched.

Dom, void of all emotion, understands how the AD feels most of the time now. He picks up Karavox, bringing it down on the Akrellix Dyalla’s head. It splits the head, but reality glitches again and the AD is whole. Dom comes to understand that the D20 in the machine’s eye is giving it the ability to cheat death; however, bound to the same rules as the party, the ability is limited.

The AD finally feels emotion: unbridled hatred. It strikes out at Dom, killing him immediately. Looking around the battlefield, it gets irritated that Dom made it feel empathy and declares the game over and will let the living party members go home if everyone still alive agrees. Eyelean, sparing a glance at Samantha’s dead body, agrees immediately.

Ronny breaks down, upset that Ronin is inside Iraga, and tearfully claims the bird has been his most loyal friend when he lived as Aranwe and stayed by their graveside as they moved on with Vilya. The Akrellix Dyalla tells Ronny it will make sure Ronin arrives outside safely, and is backed up by Syd from the D4 team. Ronny then agrees as well, knowing he is still bound by The Fair to stay inside the simulation. Xentalia also agrees. In a flash of light, those still living arrive in the obliterated ruins of Paraska Manor—right in front of the cleric and the little girl.

Syd coaxes Iraga to cough up Ronin, who is now a real bird and no longer simulated. The quicksilver girl irately declares they never want to feel emotions ever again, and says they’re going to put the world in the deepest box ever so they’ll never have to deal with emotions. The girl transforms into a sphere, which turns into a bucket. A scrap of paper is spit out of the bucket that just says “gods damn it!”

Eyelean realizes she has no gun, no knives, the D10 is gone…and her firing arm is gone below the elbow. She realizes The Fair was right: accepting their gift comes with consequences.

The others, it turns out, have also lost pieces of them. Arnold still can’t see, Meghan has lost her tongue, and Sad has lost his ears. Eyelean scrambles to fetch some paper and a pen for Meghan to communicate with. The cleric says he was expecting the party, although he’d been told there were more people. Arnold tells him they didn’t make it.

The cleric informs them that “going back” isn’t that simple, but is interrupted by Aaron Duscalla—who had been healed, not murdered, by the cleric in Chapter 2. Meghan runs to her father and embraces him. Eyelean comes to understand the D4 team’s agreement with The Fair: either Arnold would regain his sight but they would be trapped in the simulation until someone died, or they would each lose a part of themselves that the others could make up for. Arnold can see through the other two, Sad can hear through them, and both Arnold and Syd now know Meghan’s thoughts.

Xentalia slips into the earth without explanation or apology. The others can tell she’s unsettled that people died for her to escape, but they also realize that, if she’s destined to destroy Quelmar, it won’t be due to this.

Back in the simulation, Ronny comes to find the familiar face of Puud Een. Ronny asks her to validate that he did the right thing, but she says she can’t; she’s not here to judge, only collect. Ronny laments that he, as Aranwe, abandoned Ronin and chose to die, but she gently corrects him that he didn’t choose to die, only where his should would travel. In fact, Aranwe let Ronin live, as did Ronny.

Puud Men informs Ronny he can stay at the inn, which she has taken over, or choose to help his Fallen friends. To that end, Samantha is struggling with her current state, realizing she can no longer smell the roasts from her neighborhood coffeeshop—or anything ever again. She doesn’t remember her birthday or her mother’s name, or even Katelyn. She’s just…empty.

Dom is experiencing the same issue, unable to remember his grandparents or the smell of his favorite ice cream parlor. He has no memory of his favorite book, and he doesn’t feel anything other than that same aching emptiness.

Believing she was a failure and her life amounted to nothing even in the simulation, Samantha tries to claw her own throat out. She succeeds, but discovers that the Fallen don’t stay dead. She tries a second time, but is stopped by Puud Een, who says Samantha didn’t fail because some went home—and Xentalia is free. Samantha says it’ll have to be enough.

Dom confusedly asks what happened. Puud Een informs everyone the entire simulated world was compartmentalized, buried deep and far away from the Akrellix Dyalla because it “didn’t want to feel things.” She says there’s a way to help Dom and Samantha recover themselves…and, when all is said and done, possibly even go home at some point. Ronny agrees to help, and all four of them head down an empty simulated corridor in search of restoration.