While Thorin's party was made up of hardcore gamers who would often play for several days straight, even the V.I.s among them were starting to wear down. As they finished off yet another mid-boss, this one an amorphous mass of clutching tentacles, snapping fanged maws and fleshy pseudopods, Micah looked around at his party and saw the same weariness that he felt filling his own virtual frame. He'd barely been in his flesh-and-blood body at all since they had left the Last Outpost, letting Rei run everything on autopilot. She'd even been controlling his body's sleep-cycle, and while his body may have been well-rested, his mind had been going non-stop for days.

Once the horrific shoggoth had fallen to their blades and spells, Thorin called the party's advancement to a halt. The group gave a collective groan of relief, and several of them sat down right where they were standing. "I didn't want to say anything," Tyrion said wearily, "but I've been dragging ass since the fight with the dragon. That was, what, three hours ago? We need a break, even with the end of the world as a deadline."

"We still have a week before Ragnarok's at our doorstep," chimed in Gosta. "Given how far we've come in the past four days, we should have plenty of time to get to the end. Even with the difficulty ramping up the further we climb up Yggdrasil." He put an arm around Lilith, who snuggled in close to him, wings drooping in exhaustion. "And I don't know about you guys, but I have needs besides saving the digital world."

"I'm surprised you managed to make it this long without having sex with something," Tempest quipped.

"Well, that marilith was pretty fetching..." Gosta replied, drawing a groan from several of the members. Lilith elbowed him in the side, though half-heartedly. Ingrid actually blushed, though she looked as ragged and as sleepy as the rest of them.

"Alright, we could all use a nice long rest," Thorin said firmly. And I'm really wishing my girlfriend wasn't on Earth so I could have a little recreation myself, he thought but didn't say. Avril glanced over at him, as if she was reading his thoughts... and considering she inhabited part of his brain, she probably could.

They continued bantering for awhile, debating on how long to wait to resume their quest. Eventually, they decided to meet back up in 12 hours' time, hopefully refreshed and ready to take on the last leg of their journey. One by one, the avatars of the players and their V.I.s disappeared, until only Thorin and Tyrion were left, along with their Valkyries. The two of them logged out as well, but instead of returning to their bodies, they entered a virtual room that the two of them had designed together. It was modeled after an early 21st-century 'man cave', with two overstuffed couches, a big TV connected by a nest of wires to a number of classic gaming systems and posters of their favorite anime girls.

The room was unusual in that it was set up to be something of a refuge for the two friends, away from their constant virtual companions. It was as close to privacy as the two could get from companions who literally shared the same head with them. Rei and Alice had an agreement not to monitor their brainwaves while they were in this room, and would only contact them in the case of an immediate emergency.

Micah sat down on the couch, feeling almost as tired as if he'd been using his real muscles in their fight up the trunk of Yggdrasil. Tony went over to a small fridge and pulled out a couple of bottles of virtual alcohol, handing one to Micah as he took a seat on a leather-upholstered recliner. The two twisted off the caps and clinked the glasses together, enjoying the simulated bite of the brew and the onset of the mild intoxication it caused. The two drank together for a moment, waiting to break the silence.

Finally, it was Tony who turned to Micah, a thoughtful expression on his face. "So ... once all this is over. Assuming that Mia, the overminds or whoever doesn't manage to pull some deus ex machina out of their hat, that is ... what do you think will happen? Y'know, after we're all ..."

"Gone?" Micah said, staring at a poster from a late 20th century about a trio of teenage mecha pilots. The girl with blue hair bore more than a superficial resemblance to his own Rei. "Well, V.I.s are notoriously hard to destroy. We know that from the Kaine Incident."

"You mean back when they were developing the V.I.s, right?" One of their first test subjects had become the victim of his intended guardian, as a V.I. named Kaine had disabled his host's motor controls and successfully disguised himself as the hapless victim, one Xareth McLane, for several months.

"Right. Even after they kicked Kaine out of his host's body, I remember it took them months to track the V.I. down within the Datasphere. He kept leaving decoys for the Hunter-Killer squads they sent after him. And that was within a network that was built by the people Kaine was trying to run from." Tony finished his beer, looked at it for a moment, and got up to get another. Micah was only halfway through his, but downed the rest and gestured for another. Tony nodded and tossed a second brew to him, Micah catching it with the easy effortlessness that came from years of training his eye-hand coordination. He sat back down, twisting off the top and drinking thoughtfully. "Honestly, I'm suspecting the rumors are true. The moment they saw Ragnarok coming, they loaded a ship full of virtual brains and flew it in the exact opposite direction."

"Trying that probably wouldn't work with people, unless it was done in complete secrecy," Micah pointed out, slurring his speech ever so slightly. "We'd slaughter each other in the name of getting a spot on that escape craft, and probably we'd end up blowing it up before it even managed to take off." He looked again at the same poster, his words ponderous. "But the V.I.s are smarter than that, aren't they? They're programmed to view things logically, to think about the big picture. Surely they'd be able to prioritize and work towards the greater good, even if that meant saving a few while billions of other virtual minds perished."

Tony cocked an eyebrow. "Do you really believe that? Sure, they're made of silicon and an arrangement of electrons in our brains, but does Rei really act logically and without emotion? I can tell you for damn sure Alice doesn't. She's almost as troublesome as us real humans, and I can't get away from her anywhere except here."

"You have a point," Micah allowed. "Sometimes I feel like Rei gets a little ... jealous of Mia. Like she misses the days when it was just the two of us. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think..."

His slightly slurred speech was suddenly interrupted when Rei's voice appeared in his ear. "Master, I'm sorry to interrupt ..."

"What is it, Rei?" Micah subvocalized, feeling annoyed, tired and still a bit drunk. "I know I told you not to interrupt us when we're in our private chatroom."

"Not unless it's an absolute emergency, yes," Rei replied, and there was noticeable strain in her voice. A very unusual strain. "Which this definitely is."

Micah looked over at Tony, who seemed to be having a similar conversation. The two met eyes and nodded at each other. "I got the same message, man. Let's see what the hell's going on that couldn't wait back in the real world... we can continue this conversation later."

With that, Micah blinked his eyes and opened them, right back in his room where he had been before. There was something wrong, though. For one thing, sirens were going off, both in his room and through the doorway into the halls. There was ... a smell, one that he had never actually experienced in this world. He was familiar enough with it in fantasy worlds to know what it was supposed to smell like, though. Even through the filtration systems trying to keep the air clean, it was all but overpowering.

It was smoke.