Caer Siddi. 1001 years ago.

  Isaac ran at a foot-blistering pace to keep up with everyone else. His body was simply too human to keep up with their impressive speed. Even Reylynn had to slow down and wait as the other passed through a large blue crystal cavern. The smooth blue walls surrounding them shifted to purple the deeper they went before they arrived at a dark violet chamber with three crystal blue pillars, reminiscent of the seven pillars within the player respawn room of Caer Siddi.

  The left-most pillar showed Reylynn’s home, Fel, from its empty, almost ghostly courtyard. The right-most pillar was unassigned, but it was the center pillar the warriors walked through.

  Beyond the glass pane-like window was a crystal room much like the one they were standing in, but there were many more blue crystals. Twelve in total.

  In the middle of the chamber, a large orb floated above a pedestal. Both orb and pedestal were made of a pink crystal. The orb was dotted with hundreds of spheres half-exposed on its frame. Each half sphere twinkled with its own light.

  “The Architect. Anathi instructed us to bring you to them when you returned.” The warrior with the bow said.

  Isaac looked at the warrior with confusion. It seemed the hammer hadn’t given him everything he needed to know about his role in all of this. He suddenly realized he didn’t know how to talk back to anyone beyond Reylynn.

  He started to ask her what the Architect was when the orb’s appearance changed to that of a somewhat androgynous crystalline figure of similar height to Reylynn.

  “‘An army will be coming in a thousand years’ time and I will lead them. But they will need time to grow. You and the Archivist must watch them. Help them. Train them.’” The Architect said the words in a voice that perfectly mimicked Isaac’s own. Then it shifted to its own voice. “That was the task you gave me before you took the others back to Ciel. Before you died. Yet here you are, returned.”

  And just like that, everything clicked. Isaac turned to Reylynn, unsure how to speak back to the Architect. “Not yet returned. I was summoned. There are a few things you need to learn in order to prepare for my army. I will teach you.” Reylynn telepathically replied for Isaac.

  The Architect gestured to the podium. Isaac stepped up to it and a series of screens, plain and without the flair of Annwyn Online, appeared before him. That was the first thing Isaac knew he was going to change. But how?

  Isaac turned to Reylynn and signed, “Can you ask them how I am supposed to operate this?”

  The Architect answered, “The System was designed to transport the souls of up to half a million warriors into bodies specially designed to fight Isiphelo and his drones.”

  “Only half a million? I have considerably more coming.”

  Reylynn gave Isaac a quizzical expression. “How many more?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but a rough estimate would be at least twelve million.”

  Reylynn’s eyes went wide with astonishment.

  “I was not designed to handle such a computational and mana load. There was extra capacity built in for up to a million total,” the Architect replied.

  The monster that had killed Rellar outside the camp had been incredibly powerful to do that to her, even if she was only at a fraction of what she had been when she was alive. And it hadn’t been trapped inside that crystal barrier with Isiphelo. Isaac shuddered to think how much stronger it and any others out there could have gotten in a thousand years. He wanted every hand he could get. A million simply wasn’t enough.

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  A bluish glow slowly filled the room. Isaac turned and saw another mechanical man holding a blue crystal in his hand. Isaac’s eyes lingered on his elbow, which was different from the rest of his body; clockwork and gears moved inside a bronze housing. “Take this. You will have the resources you need with it.”

  Isaac accepted the crystal and turned it over to the Architect. And so he set to work taking the template that had been left for him by that other version of himself. There wasn’t much to work with, but it was enough.

  With the twelve Remnants, Isaac and Reylynn together forged the twelve classes.

  Three Tanks; Sentinel, Dragoon, Berserker.

  The Five DPSes; Sword Saint, Rogue, Ranger, Sorcerer, Warrior.

  And the four Supports; Druid, Caster, Bard, and Summoner.

  Each took on the primary weapon tied to each Remnant and Isaac issued a list of spells and abilities each class could learn. Isaac left it to the Architect to design the subclasses by granting them the bits of mythology he knew from earth.

  The Architect would need more material to work with, Isaac knew his limited knowledge wasn’t enough. That was where the Archivist would come in.

  The Archivist would send out its tendrils into the world where Isaac’s army would come from. It would access the internet, libraries, and whatever resources it needed so the Architect could better design the System that would train and strengthen the Guardians.

  Isaac used his knowledge of the present day to alter the System. The fast travel system, fragments broken off of Caer Siddi, was imprinted with a design to grow into the Guardian Cities that would dot Terre’s surface. But their purpose wasn’t just for travel. They would be safe zones, whose mana barriers, drawing on the mana stored within Caer Siddi, would defend from attack. Those who would have to live on Terre in the intervening thousand years before the Guardians’ arrival could use them to wait out that time.

  The System was planet-wide, both on Earth and Terre. There wouldn’t be enough time or resources to remove everyone who might abuse the power the System was going to grant them. More attacks like those against the northeast territories could and would happen without a failsafe of some kind in place.

  Isaac grabbed Vespers, the Remnant of the Rogue. He held the dagger and forced a change upon the weapon’s enchantment. It would be the Architect’s major tool for self defense. In essence, a way to kill the unkillable.

  Isaac stared at what he had created.

  Annwyn Online.

  It wasn’t yet complete, but the Architect now had a far stronger foundation to build upon.

  Isaac stepped back into the main lobby with the three pillars and focused on the unassigned pillar.

  Please select a destination.

  Isaac almost chose earth, but hesitated. This would be the same portal Reylynn would use to find him. The same one that connected Terre and Earth. This portal would have to stay open for nearly a thousand years on this side and for however long it needed to stay open on Earth. There wasn’t really anywhere on earth he could place it that someone wouldn’t find it. Not somewhere that Reylynn could come and go.

  A location came to Isaac. He made his choice and the pillar’s interior shifted to a view of a cold, dusty red world set for the earth year of 1996.

  Reylynn touched Isaac lightly on the hand. “This is the tool you will use to gather your army?”

  Isaac nodded. “Earth—” Isaac used a sign meaning ‘other Terre’, there wasn’t a Revi sign for Earth and the alphabet was far too dissimilar for finger spelling to have any meaning. “—is a world without Ikhwezi energy. I don’t know how Anathi knew about it, but somehow he reincarnated himself—me there. In a roundabout way, you summoning me here has let me create a way to bring you to Earth.”

  Reylynn gave Isaac a look of confusion. “I didn’t summon you.”

  Isaac looked at her, confused as well. “You brought me to the camp, from outside the walls.”

  “I never left your side.” Reylynn gestured not to Isaac, but in the direction of Ciel, meaning Anathi’s body.

  Now it was Isaac’s turn to be confused. He wanted to say something, but he got the strong impression that the summoning spell keeping him here was ending.

  Instead, he turned to the nine warriors. “Take those weapons and hide them on Terre. My army will come, but if I shouldn’t be there with them, they will need those to defeat Isiphelo.”

  The warriors nodded at Isaac and the magic binding him to this point in time ceased its hold over him.