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Ruby, Max, Wizard and Bro found themselves racing up the marble stairs. The world stretched and broke around them, the Seraphs of Order were hot on their tail. They didn't care. They were one giant staircase away from answers.
One step away from the truth of their purpose, the question they had fought so long to research and discover. What was their destiny and why was it so?
Bro lead the way, typically one to hold back and keep others moving, was now setting the pace and charging onwards, trusting his friends to follow. A welcome change of pace.
Wizard was on Bro's tail, periodically turning to fire another upcasted fireball now that he was out of Meteor Swarm spell slots. For being so unserious before, he didn't hesitate now that his friends needed him.
Ruby was behind him, head down, blades out. Instead of leading or hiding behind her friends or surroundings, she kept herself front and center, prepared to protect her new friends.
In the back, Max continued to deflect seraphim attacks, distracting, swerving, weaving, making himself as distracting as possible. This time, it was on purpose, not to cause problems for his friends but to help them.
Despite the presence of danger and the threat of the Seraphim, the four found themselves laughing in delight, relishing not in their final goal, but in having stuck it out together all this time.
The world around them melded from a cloudlit heaven slowly into an endless twilight. The Seraphim no longer followed them, but that didn't mean it was time to slow down.
The magic they had used to elevate themselves, to get up here, it only lasted for so long.
In the twilight, the stairs continued, suspended by nothing. the stars seemed distant still, tiny and unfathomable.
Slowly, they saw the distant end. They kept moving towards it.
They were relentless, they would not give up.
The end grew closer and closer, endless climbing.
Finally….the door appeared before them. A plain white door with simple geometric carvings, made of wood with a simple rounded handle and no keyhole. The door connected to nothing at all.
The party took a moment to catch their breath.
With their thoughts collected and the party ready, they opened the door.
An endless darkness stretched on beyond them. Not a star shone through it.
Max found Bro's shoulder, hand digging into his armor. If advancing would make Bro fall, he'd be caught.
Bro stepped forward and found a floor of liquid mirror, which reflected them beneath his feet and rippled as far as they could see without splashing or catching the light behind them.
The four unlikely heroes advanced onto the silvered floor, slowly moving into the darkness. Despite the lack of light, they all could see each other clearly. The door behind them slowly faded from view.
Beneath them, their reflections began to shift.
The images slowly equalized in height, becoming humans dressed in simple clothes. Ruby in green overalls, Mr. Wizard in a brown jacket, Bro in a dark shirt, Max in a red sweater.
For a long time, they walked onward into the void. Nothing existed around them.
Then they saw the first star here. Then the second, then a third. Soon enough they were walking through distant galaxies worth marvelling at.
Slowing down, the group stared around at the wonderful worlds and stars they were witnessing. They didn't notice when they were joined by a fifth figure.
He was tall and cloaked, the end of the cloak faded into the galaxies around him. The rest of his garments were a midnight blue, long and flowing, exposing nothing more than his hands, bedazzled in a variety of rings. Hidden under the hood was messy dark hair, long enough to touch the gold-rimmed glasses in front of his moonlike glowing eyes, which were outlined by a gentle spray of stars decorating his face.
The party turned to face him in awed silence. Was this their answer? The true master of their fates?
One of his hands shifted up and began to glow with four color trails, one each tied to the rings he wore, which all four of them seemed to be missing the jewels they needed to be complete.
A yellow trail faded to red off the first finger, which first stretched out around Max. The second faded green to gold looping around Mr. Wizard. From the next ring down came a red trail turning to purple, which encircled Ruby. The fourth was orange and black and wrapped around Bro.
To their surprise, this divine began to speak.
"Ruby Nyx….Max Blunder…..Mr. Wizard….Brogini Dudestone….." he began, voice resonating across the cosmos they were surrounded by, "You have found the origins of all, the beginning has become the ending."
There was a distinct gentleness to him, to how he spoke and addressed them, to his mannerisms. Somehow they four knew the fundamental truth.
They were loved beyond measure by this presence.
"I will begin with this." he continued, "I am so….infinitely proud of you. All of you have come so wonderfully far on your journeys. You have grown strong and well-bonded, you have made use of the world to its fullest. And now….I see you seek the true answer. You seek your purpose."
"Who…are you? May I ask-" Max started. Ruby shushed him but the presence smiled warmly.
"The master of the game you play, the game you all played well. Game Master is the title I was given…..but you all have earned my name….Pixlriffs."
The name rang out, through the world, through their memories.
"You're the voice in my head!!!" Mr. Wizard declared suddenly.
"Yes." Pixlriffs replied, "You have heard my voice everywhere and from everyone. I give them voices and presence, as I am their maker, so a trace of myself goes into every one of them."
"…If you made everything….did you make us?" Bro asked.
"I helped in your creation, but your life is given by another presence."
He gestured down at the floor beneath them, where reflections of humans remained. The humans who had given them life.
Pixl now had a reflection as well, another simple mortal underneath his cloak and robes, looking mostly the same as he appeared to them.
"Any creature who enters this place is shown their life maker." Pixlriffs explained, "And for every other person….every being, everything….they will see me."
"So….why?" Ruby asked, "why make all this, why are we unique?"
"Let me ask you all this…..have you grown deeply from your journeys? Have you been there for each other? And most importantly….did you have fun in shaping this world with me?"
The four of them mixed in agreements to all those questions.
"You have fulfilled your purpose." he said simply, adjusting his cloak.
Such an answer only confused the room.
"We…have?" Ruby asked.
"Correct." Pixlriffs explained, "I built this world….but you, and the unique world builders like me helped shape it, defining it step by step. The people who gave you life are my wonderful friends….and I simply wanted to delight them."
"Which….we have….." Mr. Wizard realized. It was true. If delight and merriment was the purpose of their world, their world was delightful indeed.
"And which you will be able to continue to do." Pixl replied, gently swirling the cosmos above him, turning the stars, "This world is not yet over, not if you don't want it to be. The delightful stories of Ruby, Bro, Max and Wizard need not stop here if you don't wish them to."
"What do you mean by that?" Max asked, sounding concerned.
They watched as Pixlriffs pulled one star out from amongst them all, letting it grow and enlarge into the familiar form of their world in his hand, the clouds still swirling over it's surface.
"If I am the man who threw every obstacle at you before, sometimes bending the rules to do so in the name of having fun, why would I force you to stop now? Who is to stop me from placing you back on the material plane so that your adventure can continue?"
"But….we made it up here?" Ruby started, "Does that not break things?"
"This is all as real as we let it be." Pixlriffs continued, now playing with the threads tied to them, "If you want, I can render this as nothing more than a dream….or I could let it stay very very real…..but I think you've fallen in love with this world I made for you….which means I've done a pretty good job of building it."
"Id absolutely say you have!" Bro announced, approaching the world with curiosity, curiosity Pixlriffs was more than happy to indulge, "How do you build a world? Does it require science or do you just pluck it from magic?"
"It requires logic…and a great deal of imagination….which all of you have…..so maybe some day you, your world makers, who retain all your memories and more, maybe I will teach them how to make one, if they are so inclined…..but that is not a right away sort of idea."
"Until then, what….what is going to happen?" Max asked.
"Well," Pixlriffs mused, adjusting the world slightly, letting it begin to drift around them, "I will continue to help guide your stories, as you are the true definers of your purpose….maybe the stories will continue further and a new world will begin."
They watched, marveling at it, processing it all. Not one of them was quite sure what to think. It was hard to think up here, so far away from the material world.
"Well, my crown jewels of this tale, shall the story continue?" came the question.
Even though they all already knew the answer was yes.