At The Edge of Time

There is no pain. Only white. An endless horizon of stillness and hums. The party awakens—together, though their bodies had fallen apart, buried in crimson sands and swallowed by a god-serpent. Now, they stand whole, unarmed, untouched. A dream. A trap. A figure waits for them. Genderless. Timeless. Shifting with every blink. It speaks softly, patiently: "You died. Or were meant to. You glitched." The entity calls itself Time. Not a god. Not a spirit. A force that watches, adjusts, and maintains the simulation—the illusion in which all things reside. "You were never meant to feel pain. Or choice. Everything has always been arranged, and you—broken pieces in a broken program." The party listens, stunned. Time explains that something has gone wrong. Their presence here is an error. They were meant to fade, dissolve into afterlife code—but instead, they linger. Now, Time offers them a solution. “You may return. I will build you a world identical to the one you left. You will forget this conversation. You will believe you chose it. You will believe it was your will.” A reset. A lie.

The party looks at one another. Suspicion grows. Greg clenches a fist. Manasa's eyes narrow. Mycha whispers a test of reality under his breath. They decline. Not rudely. Not rashly. Just firmly. “No,” says Kilijan. “We don’t want the illusion. We want our world. Flawed. Real.” Time sighs. A flicker of disappointment, of pity, of... amusement? Then it shifts—no longer calm. It twists, expands, speaks in a dozen voices at once. Reality buckles. And the battle begins. They fight not with weapons, but with identity. With memory. With will. Each blow they strike tears through the fabric of unreality. Each strike back threatens to rewrite who they are. Just when it seems all will collapse— They hear a voice. “Come back to me. Please.” Selena. A thread of warmth. A call beyond simulation. The dream shatters. The white fades. They awaken—gasping—in Yastogmaika’s lair, lungs raw and hearts racing. Selena kneels over them, her arms trembling with the last traces of magic. Her skin flickers with light. Her constructs—Bug, Loop, and Break—lie shattered around her. She smiles, tears in her eyes. “I had to break the rules.” And then she collapses. Time