The database wasn’t so much a database as it was a large stone library. One filled with white-blue screens and holographic projections of strange weapons and symbols. The others had taken him here quickly, not even bothering to completely finish their meal.

  Their excitement had been palpable before, but now – as they walked inside – he felt as though he could physically feel their giddiness. He could feel the magic of the space too. It was potent, almost overwhelming.

  But his trait adjusted slowly, the waves of information and energy slowing as the others led him further into the room. Even without looking, he could tell from his trait alone, this place had more than enough information stored in its halls to drive any man insane.

  The walls seemed older than those outside too, the general architecture stranger in a way, simpler in style. It reminded him more of a modern building back on Earth than a palace, though many paintings of red-haired men and women with magic and swords adorned the walls and ceiling of the hall. Daen's ancestors. It was to the point many nearer the door wore an entirely separate style of clothes to those closer to the untouched walls.

  How long has this place been here? he thought.

  He looked away from his surroundings, to the others as they led him deeper into the halls of the strange room. They turned a corner and passed by one of the strangely dressed religious men who offered them a deferential nod, before resuming his reading of a tablet.

  The group continued on, before finally, coming to a stop by a small seating area, in the centre of which sat an open white box filled with tablets and another Ria sat looking over stuff from a table in the corner.

  “I thought you said you were reading?” Harrison said turning to her.

  [I am. I came here to check for stuff] Ria said. [But there’s nothing interesting going on right now. Well besides what's already happening.]

  “Well, we can still show Caleb all the important places” Sierra said.

  “Dibs on E6-F37-E”

  “You can’t do that” Layla laughed “You just want to make fun of the prince guy”

  “He’s not a prince” Harrison grumbled.

  The rest of the group laughed, walking past the Ria clone towards the wall. Caleb followed, uncertain, then watched as they stepped through the panel between two symbols - a holographic door.

  Right, he thought. These are probably everywhere.

  He stepped through too and instantly he found himself in a darker room, this one filled with constant changing holographic feeds, each displaying a different landscape or person. Throughout all of them, men, and women, but mostly teens fought monsters and other humansm swords, spells and magic flying wildly.

  “Uh… wow. This is cool” Harrison said, looking around. Caleb frowned.

  “It’s not usually like this” Sierra added, noticing his expression.

  [I set things up] another Ria said suddenly emerging from behind a cabinet filled with tablets.

  “Geez, don’t scare us like that” Harrison said, taking a tablet from Ria’s second clone. She handed them out to the rest, Caleb taking one of his own. It was heavier than he’d expected, and practically vibrating with magic.

  “Seems powerful. What’s it for?” he asked.

  “We use these to search up anything we want to” Layla said.

  “We can show you how to use it” Sierra said. “It’s easy just-”

  “We can do that after” Harrison said, tapping away it his screen. A few of the holograms disappeared and then one of the walls shifted seamlessly into a screen filled with data on the left-hand side, and a view of a planet of blues and greens against a backdrop of black on the right. “Let’s get to the good stuff first.”

  [Wait] Ria said, tapping a few buttons. The feed shifted slightly, and then the screen came alive, projecting out of the wall into a hologram, the planet turning lazily in front of them, as the various pockets of data changed all around it.

  “You can do that!?” Harrison said surprised. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Ria shrugged.

  “I- alright. Anyway” Harrison said, grinning once again as he looked to Caleb. “This is E6-F37-E. One of the three trial planets”

  “Three?”

  “Yeah” Sierra said. “There’s only three. There were five tutorial planets, and three trials planets. As it turns out we were all on the same tutorial one.”

  “We were all on the same first world?”

  [Yeah] Ria said, tapping as she brought up another planet and more data. [DZA-S14-C. It’s kind of a special designate world, but I can’t explain more than that.]

  Caleb looked over it, then suddenly his eyes widened.

  “S-Sierra! Did the system do anything about the water thing?”

  Sierra looked to him surprised for a moment, then chuckled.

  “The system only takes that into consideration after the trial, but it’s fine. I asked Esaeni and she used a favour to fix it”

  “So Avanessa, Nessaiea, all the people, they’re ok?”

  “I haven’t been to check, but they should be. Esaeni said it was a simple problem to fix”

  “Ok. That’s… can we check? On this” Caleb said, pointing to the holographic globe in front of him

  [That’s not how it works. We only get the footage that the guides capture. I doubt they’d be in one of the random underground cities in the middle of the desert]

  “Right… sorry” he mumbled.

  “It’s alright” Harrison said. “It's a normal thing to worry about. We all asked for a few things. Ria fixed the monastery we stayed at on our tutorial world, and I asked to fix the rune thing back on the world we were just on. They can’t do it yet since it would disrupt the trial, but the system agreed to do it after. Apparently if it comes from a person of good enough renown the system will just do it”

  “Well I asked to go home” Layla chuckled. “That was the only one they completely shut down.”

  “Wait, why can’t we go home?” Caleb asked. “I can’t remember if you mentioned it.”

  “The trial’s still happening" Sierra said. "I don’t know how it works exactly, but we’re only allowed to be here as long as we don’t leave. And there’s certain things they can’t tell us about the way things work in the Federation itself.”

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  “Ria’s figured most of it out anyway” Harrison said. “She got partial reading privileges from Esaeni”

  “Wait, we’re not allowed to read?!" Caleb said surprised.

  “Well you know all the blacked out boxes in your vision you see occasionally? It’s hidden info. If someone tried to talk about it we’d just not understand. System blocks it”

  Caleb looked to the others frowning.

  “What blacked out boxes?” he muttered.

  The others looked to each other, then back to him.

  “You don’t see the black boxes over text and stuff?” Layla asked.

  “No?”

  “Wait, that actually makes sense” Sierra said. “They gave reading privileges to Ria and she doesn’t have a castle”

  “Fair. Now, right where were we?”

  “Your precious princess’ planet” Layla joked.

  “Right” Harrison said, swiping away the tutorial world. “E6-F37-E. This place, in my opinion is the most exciting one overall of any of the trial worlds”

  “He’s wrong” Sierra whispered to Caleb.

  “It’s got a little bit of everything. King and Queens, strange religious countries, a magic wasteland or two, a few governments that’re kind of unique to the planet, people with the remnants of magic and the whole Gods used to roam among us thing. There’s even a crusade that’s going on, between two sides who disagree on what the ‘Gods’ were. Well, it was until the trial started. Now they’re fighting over who incurred the wrath of the gods. I can’t tell you how many people from Earth are fighting in that”

  Harrison tapped a few more buttons on the screen, and then the planet changed, flattening out and then zooming in on a large, highlighted swathe of green.

  “Oh god” Layal said, audibly rolling her eyes.

  “This is one of the three places they sent people here, and my favourite” Harrison said. “The Empire of Ueris. It’s like a fantasy kingdom from books. Think the Hobbit, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, that kind of stuff. It’s awesome. And it’s huge. Fourteen culturally distinct kingdoms all brought together by the central power. Altogether their about the size of Africa. Forget about the Kings even just the nobles are like our Monarchs from medieval times. It’s got the paladins, and knights, legends of great heroes and gods and all that.”

  “And a princess you’re absolutely obsessed with” Layla said.

  “I’m not obsessed”

  “Right” she said sarcastically.

  “Anyway, this is where they sent the most people. I think about forty percent of people who passed the tutorial were just dropped in here.” Harrison said. “Ten percent were scattered in the wasteland and some religious kingdoms on the other side of the planet, and for the other planets they split us in two, both got about twenty five.”

  “Forty percent?” Caleb muttered. “How many is that?”

  [Five hundred and fourteen thousand, and twenty-eight] Ria said, as Harrison started tapping away at his tablet.

  “Yeah” Harrison nodded. “It’s a higher percentage of the population than they usually even have for an entire trial planet. We did really well in the tutorial, even despite the screw up.”

  “Wait what?”

  “They usually take about a one four-thousandth of the population of a trial world to put through the whole thing” Sierra said. “Most don’t even have forty percent make it through the tutorial.”

  “Why?”

  “Just the way things are” she replied.

  “But why’d it happen? This whole... thing? To our world specifically?”

  “No one’s said. Don’t think they can” Layla said with a shrug. He nodded, looking back to the satellite view of the Empire beneath him. His frown grew as he tried to make sense of the muddle of thoughts he was struggling to deal with.

  An uneasy feeling had begun to creep up into him now, a chill almost, passing through the base of his spine as the edges of his scars tingled.

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  “I- how many are still alive?” Caleb asked. “We started with two million, right?”

  [No] Ria said. [Because of some kind of mistake, twenty million were sent originally. They sent the extra people back, at least the ones who didn’t die. But the chaos caused a lot of premature deaths that the system didn’t fix. So, we started with one million, eight hundred and forty seven thousand, two hundred and eighty nine]

  Caleb nodded.

  “Right, where were we?” Harrison said, before zooming in on one of the Kingdoms of the Empire. “Ah, the Kingdom of Uer. The biggest and the best of them. A bunch of people were sent here, some in the western mountains, others on the edge of the Northern desert, but most by the Ueran forest between the three megacities. With all the knights and lords, and just cool stuff”

  “We get it Harry” Layla said. “The explanations are supposed to be brief so we can go over everything. Esaeni's going to be here soon”

  “Man, it must have been amazing” Harrison said ignoring her. “I would’ve thrived there.”

  [Sure] Ria said. [I guess that’s why you didn’t pick up a sword until our final fight.]

  The others laughed, but Caleb only frowned looking down to the map below. Listed in one of the data boxes, beside the area Harrison was talking about was a high danger warning in red.

  “It says great danger” he said.

  “It’s because of the location" Sierra said. "There’s goblins in the forest. Not the other goblins we fought in the tutorial, a different kind"

  "Yeah. It’s not really that dangerous” Harrison added.

  [They’d have gobbled you up in seconds] Ria said.

  “No, I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to walk into the forest like all the other idiots”

  [Yeah, you’d have run into it and died first.]

  The others laughed, and Caleb’s frown grew. Sierra glanced to him, and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered as the others continued to talk.

  “It’s… I’m confused” he muttered struggling to get his thoughts in order. “If the system was just dropping people into danger... how many people are alive?”

  “You can check the numbers on your tablet” Sierra said, pressing a few buttons. He nodded and following her direction as Harrison continued to laugh along with the others. It didn’t take long to find the death summary.

  Trial Stats for planet Z1-E94-C participants: - Death summary

  2,000,000 selected for the trial from a population of 8,161,972,572

  Note - 152,711 died before the official tutorial began. Making the actual number that participated in the tutorial 1,847,289.

  1,285,071 survived the tutorial

  Of the 724,929 (39.24%) that died during the tutorial, 310,407 were killed by monsters (Hilaric - 115,287, Moshaic - 195,120), 82,349 were killed by other players, 94,852 were killed by non-players and 237,321 died of starvation or dehydration, or other survival-based incidents.

  [PENDING] 91,1078 have survived the first phase

  Of the 1,193,963 (92.91%) that have died during the first phase, 971,233 were killed by monsters (Hilaric - 501,344, Moshaic - 469,889), 19,341 were killed by players, 17,712 were killed by non-players, and 185,677 died of starvation or dehydration, or other survival-based incidents.

  Caleb stared at the numbers on the tablet in front of him, quiet.

  More than a million people, just dead. Gone. And the others were laughing about it. Joking and calling those that'd died idiots. No. That wasn’t fair. They weren’t laughing about the deaths, but they were ignoring them. Treating them like just numbers on the screen. Like this was a game.

  He felt sick. No part of him could understand how the others were enjoying this. Sure, they were talking about how cool these new worlds were, but they were making jokes about people just like them too. They were making jokes of people, scared and running in an unfamiliar world.

  Memories of fire, blades and blood flashed to his mind and he flinched hard.

  For a moment his balance disappeared, but he quickly steadied himself struggling to catch his breath, as he wiped beads of sweat off his forehead.

  Have they forgotten? he thought. How?

  How could anyone ever forget? He looked back up to the others, the map on a new location.

  “And here Caleb, is the sea of monsters. It’s mostly just a regular sea with a few bad stories. But if you go further out there’s like a weird gas thing going on. It just blankets the ocean and suffocates people Think really stinky cause of all the methane, but also really hot” Harrison chuckled. “Definitely wouldn’t want to die like that. I mean, do you guys remember that one girl who tried to sail out across it to get away from the dwarf raiders?”

  “Oh my god” Sierra chuckled as the others all started laughing. Caleb stared, his face twisting with a confused horror.

  “Why’s that funny?” Caleb muttered. “I- why is that funny?”

  Everyone went quiet, the air suddenly filled with an awkwardness. Caleb looked to the floor, recognising the sudden shame in the others faces.

  “Sorry I just… sorry” he mumbled.

  “No, it’s- you’re right” Harrison muttered. “It’s not I just… uh… do you want to see the other places?”

  “It’s probably best if we leave it” Sierra said. “Sit outside and just wait for Esaeni”

  “Yeah” Layla muttered, her voice strained. They filed out quickly, before taking seats in the seating area just outside the door.

  Caleb could feel it suddenly in the way the others had spoken, how the conversation had shifted.

  They’d been here for so long, watching the chaos behind screens that it had become a game for them. Something to talk about, and bond over. Of course they hadn’t forgotten. But they’d tried to. And he’d reminded them for a moment, of all the horrors they’d lived through. Of just how many people they’d lost.

  For them, the database likely seemed a lot less fun.