[Can’t Opt Out]

Emilia came back into existence in a pathetically tiny room. Grimy and red-tinged… everything. Even what light was sneaking in through ratty old curtains was bloody, although the room itself was surprisingly bright, light coming from… somewhere.

A creature, something black and long, scurried over the floor, and she tried not to squeak at the suddenness of it. Tiny. Gross. Evil. She pulled her legs up onto the chair she had come to on, her eyes scanning the room. Chair, bed, sad little kitchen and—most importantly—no Censor. None of the information that normally chased Baalphorians through the world spitting across her vision. No time, date, temperature, news feed—although she had long since turned that particular function of her own Censor to only emergency alerts.

No notification of the unread messages from friends, classmates and teachers. None of her numerous group chats flickering as people made plans for meeting up. She almost always had at least a few dozen unread messages, which was better than it had been during the war. There had always been too many messages during the war, and even when she had tried to stay on top of them, she couldn’t. Now she had nothing.

Nothing.

It was… eerie. She’d known it would be—had known that the few rules this platform had were isolating and extreme.

Even more off-putting than the lack of her Censor, however, was the lack of connection to her aether stores. Normally, she’d only feel them when she had nearly exhausted them—difficult, given hers were so large, but she’d done it a few times during the war and, er… ill-advised experiments, in the decades before that. Without her Censor, telling her what state they were in—plus a little addon she’d programmed, telling her how much she could access at once, given whatever state her knots were in—she had no idea if she even had aether stores in this world.

Not that having aether stores would help her at the moment, her only way of potentially using them currently being through her core. Most Baalphorians were taught from a young age not to mess with their core, instead waiting until their Censors were installed as teenagers to experiment with skills and the aethernet. Emilia might have ignored the “don’t use your core” advice quite a few times in her life—had ignored it just a few hours ago, in fact—but she was by no means an expert, nor had she accessed it directly, without at least some aid from her Censor, since she was a child.

Reaching towards her core now… she could tell it was there, humming quietly inside her, but other than that…

Nope. Nothing. Emilia couldn’t tell if she had aether stores or core energy or anything else. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally fuck her core up by pushing too hard at it. It wouldn’t affect her real body, of course, but for all she knew, damaging it could take her out of the game before she even knew what the game even was.

Emilia forced her attention away from her core, returning to examining the room. She eyed up the hole the… whatever creepy fucking thing that had been had scurried into. Nothing appeared, and she braved putting her feet back down, pushing herself off the chair. She was a big, strong woman! She could face tiny little things, no matter how creepy they were with their long tails and big red eyes!

She walked to one of two doors in the room, this one slightly ajar, and was unsurprised to find a bathroom. It was even more disgusting than the rest of the apartment was, everything caked with dirt and other substances that she refused to think about.

Toilet, suspect looking. Shower, built for one and probably cold water only—assuming it had water at all. Vanity, complete with cracked mirror and only one drawer, two empty spaces below it. One of the vanity doors was missing as well, the pipes visible under it so dirty Emilia was afraid to touch them.

Her reflection stared back at her through the broken, smudged mirror. She looked very out of place. The system had taken her most recent virtual self and supplanted it into the raid. She looked way too perfect. Perfect hair and makeup. Even her clothes were pretty, if also meant for comfort. Their blue and purple tones definitely didn’t go with the room’s red, white and black aesthetic, and when the mirror lit up, asking if she wanted to change her appearance, she may have hit yes a bit too fast.

[Welcome to the Appearance Editor]

[Please note: Once you leave the editor, you will be unable to further edit your appearance.]

[There are, however, stores which offer more clothing options and haircuts.]

[You may also acquire clothing from locals.]

[You will be unable to alter several aspects of your physical appearance once you leave the editor.]

[These aspects include: general body appearance, makeup, and scars.]

Various options flashed across the mirror, and Emilia quickly skimmed through the them. This platform seemed to allow almost any change to your appearance, from race to height and weight, from adding scars to changing your bone structure and where and how you stored fat and muscle. Changing your gender wasn’t off limits either.

To the side of the mirror, the rules of the platform appeared. One last chance to read them over and return to the real world, it said, in much more legal terms. Along with an accept button for each rule—more official than her general acceptance from just entering the contest’s platform. That was interesting, and somewhat ominous. It had been common practice for years that heroes were responsible for knowing the rules of a platform before entering it. Ignorance was not an excuse.

Given the rules, however, it didn’t surprise her that this platform required a more official acceptance. Granted, she didn’t usually play on raid platforms—or any less serious virtual reality platforms either—but these rules were intense. She’d certainly never heard any of her more raid or gaming minded friends or classmates mention competing in anything like this.

[Rule 1: Everyone begins {A Life (not) in the Stars} at level 300]

That wasn’t exactly rare. Every season, the government reset hero levels to 300. Then, if you were a serious player, you spent the next few months trying to get as close to 0—as close to perfect—as you could. Almost no one got anywhere close—not unless they already had sub-30 D-Levels or were frequenting underground knotting clinics.

[Rule 2: The system is inaccessible until you complete ____]

The fact that the system was inaccessible to begin with was weird. The fact that the rules didn’t even tell you how you gained access to it? Emilia could understand there being a tutorial you had to finish before you received full access, or some kind of beginner quest.

No information at all, though? No hint? Not even a vaguely named location or quest name? That was weird, and probably one part of why so few people had joined the raid. Even with the possibility they’d learn how to access the system after formally beginning the raid, that kind of ignorance didn’t sit well with most people.

The bigger reason so few people had joined the raid, however, was rule 3.

[Rule 3: Once you begin {A Life (not) in the Stars} you may not leave]

You may not leave, as in, if you can never figure out how to access the system, you’ll be stuck in this world as a level 300 hero—someone completely helpless, without skills or the ability to defend themself—for a month.

Yeah, that was a big fat nope for most people. Emilia imagined that even if the grand prize were enough money to match even the wealthiest of sub-30s, most people still wouldn’t touch a platform with these three rules, let alone when combined with rule 4.

[Rule 4: Anything goes]

Emilia had heard of her friends playing on anything goes platforms before. Sil had played one once, and only once. Anything goes truly meant anything goes. You could kill and be killed. Of course, you’d wake up in your body, but that shit could be traumatizing, and being killed—killing in return—wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to you.

Not the worst by far.

Anything goes also meant you were signing away your rights. You could be tortured inside the platform and have no legal recourse against your attackers once you left—assuming they were actual people, and not sadistic, AI constructs of the platform. Technically, there were laws to control that sort of thing, but you effectively had to prove that there had been intention to torture before your attacker entered the game, and you were all but shit out of luck if the AI constructs had tortured you.

As fun as it would be, watching Olivier go after someone for her torture, not letting it go until there were much more sensible laws in place, she would much rather not be tortured.

She sighed, leaning back to examine her new face in the mirror. It was pretty close to her normal one, just more delicate, a little younger. She hadn’t changed her hair or eye colour, but she’d cut her hair, the silver-grey strands now falling into a pin straight bob with a thick fringe, her larger, brighter eyes shining from under them.

A little shorter, a little tinier, too. She looked innocent, as stupid as some people liked to assume irregulars were. Most people wouldn’t let their guard down around someone on looks alone, but some would. Some people would be stupid enough to trust her—to offer her help—just because she looked like a doll. Of course, it would also make her a target for certain, less than savoury people, but that could come in handy, under the right circumstances.

She glanced through the clothing options before deciding on a pair of shorts and a loose, flowing top, its fabric delicate and poofy, giving it the appearance of a short dress. She cursed herself slightly for not having looked outside before she dealt with clothing, however. It could be a world of ice outside, and she’d be totally fucked, and even if her outfit were a totally reasonable clothing chose, she had no idea on colours! What would fade into the world, allow her to disappear if she needed. The only clue she had was the red of her room and the light shimmering in, and after a moment of thought, she settled on a red so black it reminded her of dried blood for her top, and plain black bottoms.

Emilia’s fingers lingered where her willbrand would normally be, the golden necklace no longer hanging down across her chest. It had been a solid, comforting weight for so long. To have it gone… she was trying not to think about how vulnerable that made her feel. After a moment of consideration, she decided to not replace it with anything. The last thing she needed was to forget it wasn’t her willbrand and to try and use it in combat. That was the kind of fuck up that got people killed.

After confirming that she could, in fact, take her clothes off at will, Emilia added in a pair of lacy black tights and a black cloak. A touch of makeup, the effect making her look somewhere between innocent and sick, and bing bang boom. Innocent little princess vibe: complete!

Emilia twirled, cloak flying wide around her. She winked at the mirror, the kind of cheerful smile she had trained into herself as a teenager stretching across her face. Heel pop. Peace sign.

Oh, yeah. She was fucking cute.

She looked over the few other options available on the mirror, finding an option to take a photo of herself, to “Remember this moment later.” Ew, no, but also…

She repeated the movement, saving the adorable photo to show her friends later, and accepted all the rules. A thank you very much flashed across the screen, along with a long legal disclaimer that she was definitely not wasting her time reading. It would just be all, not legally responsible, can’t be held liable for therapy costs, etc etc. She glanced over the emergency contact information she had filed earlier, stating that Payton was responsible for her. He’d gotten his copy since then, his signature now sitting beside her own, confirming that he understood not to try and remove her from the system unless there was an emergency.

Yada yada. So many useless details, and she swiped them and her last connection to the outside world away. The words across the mirror faded, and she was left staring at herself, so perfect and out of place in her new home… gross. Temporary new home, hopefully. Better yet, spawning location. She’d spawned here and she would leave and—

Emilia’s thoughts stalled as she peeked out the window she had walked over to and she took in the world. Everything was so fucking red. The sky, the ground, the buildings. Rusty, breaking apart red. Blood splattered across the world and left to dry too long red. Pollution that’s going to rot your insides red.

Lovely.

Her spawn point was high up, at least a hundred floors, and if the surrounding buildings were anything to go by, this building probably stretched at least a few hundred floors higher as well. Possibly higher, some of the nearby buildings stretching so high they disappeared into impenetrable red clouds. Everything was packed together, so much like the neighbourhood of the purist building, except, you know, red. Short bridges connected the buildings occasionally, and on some of the closer ones, Emilia thought she could see people walking, but everything was smudged in red grime and for all she knew those were actually monsters.

Maybe they were commuting to work. Monsters could have jobs, too.

She let the curtain fall, glancing back towards the other, closed door. She assumed it led out of the room, but you never knew. Maybe she was supposed to break this window and climb to the nearest bridge or straight down to the ground—

What would even happen if she fell? If she died here? Would the system eject her, or would she be left to linger as a ghost for the whole five hours? Be forced to watch as heroes more skilled—or at least more sensible—than her continued to fight for the grand prize while her mind lingered?

Emilia shook off those thoughts. She wasn’t going to die. She was going to win—or at least get a respectable third place!

She didn’t quite skip over to the door, but she might as well have, the cute walking shoes she had chosen—a pure black, because she had a feeling anything else would be showing blood stains pretty damn fast—squelching over the sticky floor. Sticky with what, she didn’t want to know.

She pressed an ear to the door, listening for signs of anything on the other side, but either the door was soundproof or there was literally nothing on the other side, and she pulled it open. Her head poked out, looking down each side of the long hall of doors, most of which were ajar. A quick trip down the hall told her each of the rooms was nearly identical to her own, presumably where the other people who had joined the raid had spawned.

Some appeared to have been ripped apart, presumably by other heroes looking for clues. She went through the items littering a few of the rooms as well as her own, cringing as her hands began to turn red. Grease slicked over her skin, dirt clung to her nails—although it was barely visible, given she’d styled them long, sharp and black. She tried to wash her hands and discovered the water was just as red—assuming the thick sludge that sputtered out of the pipes even was water.

Could be blood, for all she knew.

In the end, all she had was gross hands and the knowledge that, if there were some clue hiding in their rooms, it wasn’t something consistent. Occasionally, there was an item missing from a room, but it was always different, and the identical item in her own room usually appeared completely normal. More likely, it was other heroes messing with their competitors. Drive them crazy, wondering why a throw pillow was special, why one specific fork was the answer.

She still pocketed the broken-pronged fork from her own spawn room, the iridescent-red metal sparkling slightly in her hand. Just to be safe.

She considered looking around for more answers, to see if she could find a clue no one had yet found. It had already been five days, though. Five days for everyone else to ransack their rooms, rip everything apart and find whatever was hiding there—if there was anything hiding at all.

Something in Emilia’s gut was telling her there was nothing here. Some vibe saying, “Move on.” She’d always been one for going with the flow and following her heart. If she found out later that she’d missed something, she could try to come back—or just steal whatever she needed from another hero. Lingering any longer felt like it would just be wasting time she didn’t have.

Five days were already gone. Five days could give someone quite the lead, and catching up meant she’d need to skip what might otherwise be the natural thing to do and hope it didn’t fuck her over later.

Emilia reached the end of the hall, a staircase offering to lead her up or down. Up into however many floors existed above her, or down to the ridiculously red world below.

{A Life (not) in the Stars} could refer to anything—could refer to nothing at all.

Your starting life isn’t one in the stars, so rise.

The prize you seek is not in the stars, so fall.

This is just the random ass name we chose—you’re reading too much into it!

Options, options.

Emilia looked up, looked down. How was it that she lived in such an advanced civilization, lines taking your right, left, up and fucking down, and yet! AND YET! She had been forced to follow so many fucking staircases today!

Sometimes, life really wasn’t fair.