Strawberry's Descent

They gathered again a few days later, Nettle taking the boat out for the conversation rather than meeting anywhere near the docks. None of them wanted to risk an NPC overhearing, not before they'd even figured out what to say to each other.

The initial shock had settled enough for honest conversation, everyone carrying their own private answer to the question none of them had wanted to ask so soon.

"I think we should just say it plainly," Arista said. "What we're each planning to do. Whether you're going to 2.0, or whether this is where it ends for you. No judgment either way. I just don't want anyone assuming something about someone else's choice without actually hearing it."

Nobody argued the framing.

"I'm not going," Arista said first, her voice only slightly strained. "I've made my peace with that already. This world's not just mechanics to me anymore. It's everyone in it. A new globe with new races isn't a continuation of that. It's just a different game."

Bram nodded. "Same. Not going." He glanced around at the group, something resolute in his expression. "I know I don't talk about it as openly as some of you, but I care about this place exactly as much as anyone here. Beelz, Gorthruk, all of it. I'm not interested in starting that over with strangers, even familiar-looking ones."

Nettle spoke next, equally certain. "Not going, either. I built an entire bank around people here. Real relationships, real trust, Saturnus, Dorric, half the vendors across six kingdoms. I'm not trading that for better graphics and zero gold in my account."

Claire took a moment longer, considering her own answer. "Not going, as well. Though I want to be honest about why, since it's a little different from the rest of you." She glanced around. "I didn't come here for the world. I came here for a job. But somewhere along the way, it stopped being a job. I don't want to start that relationship over from a job posting either."

"For me, it was the scale of what we were building," Petrov said. "The railway, the metro, projects worth being part of. That's what pulled me in originally, more than any particular attachment to any one person." He considered his own answer carefully. "I'm not going either, in the end. Not because I can't imagine new projects in a new world. I just don't think I'd find anything there worth building that would matter as much as what we've already built here."

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Colm, when his turn came, was quieter, visibly uncertain. "I think I'm going."

Nobody spoke.

Arista took a moment before she could answer, the gap between their choices suddenly real in a way it hadn't quite been until he said it out loud. "...Tell us why."

"It's not that I don't care about this place," Colm said carefully. "I do. More than I think I've ever said out loud." He glanced down. "But a globe, instead of a flat continent, an entire world's worth of coastline and terrain I've never seen. That's what calls to me. Not leaving you. Just... the pull of somewhere unmapped."

Bram gave Colm's shoulder a pat, a little too hard, the younger man buckling slightly under the sudden weight of it. Realizing it immediately, Bram pulled his hand back, his face kind and warm. "You always were happiest with a blank space nobody else had touched yet."

"I was," Colm admitted. "This one's just bigger than any I've had before."

"How do you even start mapping a globe?" Petrov asked. "A continent has edges. Boundaries to find and fill in."

"You don't, not all at once." Colm leaned forward. "You pick a coastline and follow it. Figure out where the rivers actually begin, what's beneath the first mountain range you find. The rest fills in from there, piece by piece, the same way it did here."

"That's going to take you years," Bram said.

"Good," Colm said.

Arista nodded slowly. "That makes sense. I'd have missed you either way, Colm, whatever you'd chosen. At least this way I understand why."

Nettle sat beside Fen. Between producing Pink Salmon and finding ever more people to sell it to, the two had grown rather close.

"I'm going too," Fen said. "I've been reading about the new biomes. They haven't released an ingredient list yet, but—"

"You've already started making one," Nettle said.

Fen glanced at her. "A speculative one."

"Of course you have."

"I'd hoped you'd come," Fen admitted.

Nettle rested her hands on the table. "I know."

"We work well together."

"We do. I'm going to miss that."

"We haven't finished here yet," Fen said.

"I know. You still owe me another batch."

"You said the last one would be enough."

"Then people bought it."

"That was the idea, Nettle."

"And now I need another batch."

Fen laughed despite herself. "I'll see what I can manage before March."

Arista looked around the table.

"I'm going to miss every single one of you," she said. "Whatever you've chosen. Colm, Fen, you're just going toward something that calls to you the way this place once called to all of us."

Colm managed a small, grateful smile. "Thank you. For understanding."

"Of course," Arista said. "We've got three months. Let's make sure however this ends, none of us have any regrets about how we spent them."