Chapter Text
Home is calling Noctis.
It’s a weird feeling. Most Players will not experience such a thing in their lives, because it isn’t exactly normal. But Noct’s home isn’t normal.
She gets the sense that if she doesn’t answer the call, she will find herself back in Noxesium anyways. There hasn’t been a documented “abduction” into Noxesium in years and years — ever since its plight became more common knowledge — but she does not think this sensation is a request.
When Noctis knows she can’t avoid it anymore, she goes to find her boss and resident domain god — Scott Smajor.
“Scott? Are you busy?”
Scott's office is a predictable mess. He's curled over a mess of papers on his desk, scribbling in a notebook, and looks up at the voice and gentle knock. Noctis is there, her midnight black horns just barely tapping the top of the doorframe. He snaps the notebook shut and sits up, gesturing for her to come in.
"Noctis! Hey, no, I uh," He tosses the book and pen aside, pretending it was intentional when the pen rolls from the desk onto the floor. "Not at all. What's up?"
Noct snorts gently, stepping inside and leaning over to pick up the pen before it assimilates into the room's disasterous state and set it back on his desk. “Maybe it’s a bad question, because I know you’re always busy.” She teases. As community manager for MCC, Noct is also perpetually busy, but such is the state of things. “I could use your help with something.” They admit, pulling up a chair. They relocate the papers stacked on it, Scott take them gratefully, and settle down. “With Noxesium business.”
"Oh?" Scott can't say he knows much about Noxesium. Just a bit, really, not even quite as as far as Mojang as a whole does because he does not like to play god politics. He knows that many of his friends are from the server, and that it's no longer habitable. But he's never really pressed Noxcrew to give him more details. That's their business afterall; there isn't much point in disturbing privacy for curiosity. "What's going on?"
“It’s really just a feeling.” Noct says, fidgeting with a ring on their finger, spinning it, her purple eyes sliding away from Scott's face. “But that’s always been how things are. I think I have to go back. I don’t know why, really, but … something’s calling.”
Calling. Gods, Scott really doesn't like that, but he tries not to let it show on his face. "Okay, that's ominous. Lovely." Eldritch whositwhatsit encroaching on people he loves? Will it ever stop happening? "I'm taking it that this isn't an old friend calling you back or something like that."
"No." Noct says with a fanged frown. "I don't really know what it means. Bot Noxesium tends to grab people when it goes unnoticed too long."
"But that's not the case anymore." Scott says immediately. "Mojang left the server open to make sure of that." He frowns. "Why drag you back, do you think? None of the others?"
"I don't know." Noct admits. "It doesn’t feel malicious, I don’t think it’s ever been.”
Scott wants to believe that, he really does, but history does not lend itself to that. He tries to smile for Noctis' sake as he grabs a few things and slots them into his inventory. "I guess we're going to find out." He turns to Noctis. "Do you want to leave right away?"
For a moment, Noct just blinks, eyes flickering across Scott's face. “Oh. I — I didn’t even ask you to come yet.” Clearly, his eagerness has taken her aback.
"Oh, I just assumed—" Scott twirls his hand in a circle, shrugging. "I mean you're not going alone — it's not safe. I'm not going to just sit here and wave you off as you run into danger."
Rising from her seat, Noct smiles back at him. “Well I won’t refuse your company, and a good flier will help.”
"Then let's get going."
On their way out, Noctis explains things a bit more to Scott, updating him on the details of the Noxesium server that Scott didn't recall off the top of his head. NoxCrew had been the main group of survivors when the server known as Noxesium went unstable. The world had been busy, modern and high-tech, until one day the planet's core went nuclear after a missing drilling mission gone awry. The day after — the whole server had reset.
And it had happened again, and again, and again.
"The jist of the loop for those pulled in to play it out," Noct explains. "Is that we'll be conscripted to fly state-of-the-art elytra flying suits to the core of the planet. There was a drilling mission that got lost. One of the scientists is dead, but the other is alive, but, well — without his marbles.” Noct frowns as she says it. “He causes a core implosion, world explodes, and repeat.”
"People used to be dragged in." Scott recalls again. "Just woke up there before it the situationw was understood. Mojang wanted it fully quarantined, but it was figured that people were going to go regardless. If the wards were damaged, it could destroy other servers, so it's limited access but not off-limits."
"Mhm. Since it became limited access there haven't been any abductions. I know a few members of NoxCrew have gone back once or twice of their own accord, but things haven't changed. The server rewinds and loops continues."
Scott wracks his brain trying to remember if he's ever been told if Noxesium had a domain god, or if it was a moored server. But it wasn't the sort of thing he generally paid attention to. "It feels like a trap, I'm sorry to say."
"I know. Any deaths on the server have been ruled accidental, people can and do go in and out … technically, it's less dangerous than 2b2t, and that's still public access." Noct points out.
They're walking towards the portal hub, and Scott's not sure he has a great feeling about all this. Noctis, for her part, is trying to be optimistic.
"Did Noxesium ever have a public-facing domain god?"
Noctis shakes her head. "Not that I know of. But if there is one, maybe you can help her, domain god to domain god."
"It's worth trying to find out."
They jump to the worldhub and then towards Noxesium. It's all bureaucracy to get into the server — answering questions, signing paperwork that agrees any injuries sustained are their responsibility, and setting a high respawn threshold. Mojang is doing its due diligence, Scott thinks begrudingly, to make sure no one dies a final death in this server.
"Does Noxesium have a surviving domain god?" Scott asks his interviewer. The mothlin gazes at him owlishly at the quesetion, looking down to his paperwork (which verifies that Scott himself is a domain god) and then to his face.
"Um." The mothlin mumbles. "I don't know anything like that. Inquiries like that should be sent straight to Mojang."
"It's alright." Yeah, like sending an inquiry to Mojang will result in getting an answer in any mortal's lifetime. "Are we ready to go?"
"Oh, yes, M. Smajor, you're cleared."
When they stand before the portal, Scott offers his hand to Noctis, and she takes it.
"Feeling okay?" He asks, and she nods, her clawed thumb rubbing the back of his hand gently.
"I'm okay. It's really weird to be going back, but I think it's what we have to do."
Scott steels himself, takes a breath, and they walk forward together.
There's a moment of weightless transition, and then Scott's feet hits the ground and he nearly tips sideways. He catches himself, hand against something smooth and cold, and his other arm shoots out to grab for Noctis. "That's a bumpy one — are you alright?"
Scott can feel Noctis' hand closed around his bicep. "I'm okay."
The ground is moving beneath their feet — and Scott realizes it's because it's not earth, but they're in a helicopter.
The intercom pings on and a voice disorted by radio says,
“We’re coming down at the GDL landing pad now. Prep for landing.”
Still holding onto him, Noctis turns to peer out the window. Scott can see the world going by, sun and sky, and a sprawling campus of shiny buildings laid out beneath them. And far below that, Scott knows, doom is rumbling. As warned, the helicopter begins to descent, and it's strange to see Noxesium this way. It is no ruined domain, no post-apocalyptic wasteland. Just a regular server, beautiful, locked in a perpetually sunny day with things thriving.
"This the right place?"
"Mhm." Noctis confirms as the ground gets closer. "GDL funded the core mission and the rescue. Everybody who comes here shows up at their doors. You know, at first, everybody thought it some tech of their's causing the loop. But it doesn't really seem like that's the truth."
"How … how many times have you done this?"
Noctis' eyes are taking in her home “At least a dozen." She admits and Scott's heart twists. "Not this bit, though. Just my own life, waking up in my bed and doing the same day over and over until I was evacuated. My apartment is out there, everytime the loop starts.”
Scott wishes he knew what to say to that, as the helicopter comes in for a landing. The intercom comes back on.
“You can disembark when you’re ready. Good luck.”
The door slides open and a ladder extends. Noct looks out into the sunshine.
“Here we go.”