altimit | FOR THEY CANNOT DIE ANYMORE, BECAUSE THEY ARE EQUAL TO ANGELS.

Today, the canals of Mac Anu flow as gentle as they always do, gondolas drifting lazy through the paths of sunlight cut bright across the water. Shops and vendors line the stonework streets along the waterways, a general murmur of NPCs circulating through their preprogrammed business keeping Mac Anu, as always, feeling maybe a little more alive than a real city.

There is one particular bridge that nearly every player's taken at least once, because it connects to a great many other places of interest, and it's wide enough for easy travel. Besides, with the professions update, they've put a fishing spot on the other side of it. NPCs with fishing rods litter the spot in alternating shifts, their laughter mingling with the calls of shopkeeps advertising cheap prices for some simple plants to get started crafting with, and the clink of forks and plates at a restaurant nearby, its customers singing the chef praises.

Below the bridge, a gondolier passes, humming, his gondola drifting along its circuit through the canals, his tune in rhythm with the passing conversation. As he comes out from under it and sails further away, he glances up at the bridge, as if he were expecting something, and he seems to see it. His gaze remains fixed there until, eventually, the water takes him out of sight again.

Today, you might notice that at the base of this bridge, just before your feet, is a red sort of smear.

A little further down the bridge, about a fourth of the way along it, is a person collapsed on the ground. The red trails to him, fallen forward.

You see upon approaching his hand grasping at his throat at the singularly cut sliced deep into his neck. His one good eye wide and unblinking, he is—among all the laughter and conversation on either side of the bridge; in the shadow of the clock tower, which stands a silent witness, the sun at its back—no longer breathing, his body cool to the touch.

Perhaps this could be considered a kindness: for one who failed, time and time and again, to grasp the desire to live, maybe he found some suggestion of it in his last moments, his hand at his throat, his palm smeared with dried blood, a curious anomaly in the deathless Mac Anu. Fragment had, after all, taught him a great many things. Should he not be grateful for one more, no matter how permanent the lesson?

Mithrun is dead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She goes pale.]

So- so hang on, he's seriously-?

[Hunching over, grabbing his own wrist. If he leaves imprints of his own nails in his skin, that's normal.

Fine even. Pain keeps him anchored here in this unreality]

I don't know. I've been calling and calling. If I could, I'd visit but...

Are you friends with him?! Was he getting any glitches before this happened?!!

Just the usual ones that affect all of us.

[He's not going to bother answering that first question. Of course they're friends]

He wasn't stuck or anything?

No, nothing like that.

[Would Mithrun would have been aware?]

So it's something else this time. Great!

What are the admin doing about it?

...I don't know. I didn't feel ready to ask him anything. But the barrier must be his doing.

Useless as usual!

[She makes a frustrated noise.]

So what, we just sit around knowing someone else got messed up and then keep on playing like usual?