The group continued talking for the next few minutes, and eventually everyone from the first group had finished making their way into the briefing room.
"Can I get everyone's attention please!" One of the developers stepped up and began speaking to the group. "We've got a fair bit to cover and about eighteen minutes until the next group is brought in for their briefing, so we need to get through this quick."
The developers started off the briefing by talking about the success of the preventative measures they implemented regarding player versus player combat for lower levels. They brought up that PvP combat was the lowest it has been since the first session, and they seemed rather proud of that.
The developers covered some other things that Arthur wasn't that interested in, but he turned in when the developer began talking about the vampire den and the players who conquered it. The roleplayers seemed happy that they got a special mention, but there were quite a few daggers aimed at them once Arthur's name was also brought up.
Then came the time everyone was waiting for, most hoping that the top three were finally knocked off their pedestals. But to their surprise, the top three had been expanded to the top five.
"Starting off at fifth place, at level four with one soul, Director_Blake." The developer read out, quickly swapping the page and reading the next one. "Next we've got forth place, the man who dealt the killing blow to the vampire, at level four with one soul, Zankoku."
"Next up, we've got third place barely keeping his position it seems, at level four with two souls, Typhoeus." The developer said as he glanced at the next page. "And at second place, at level four with two souls, Snowbunny."
"You're only using two souls?" Arthur whispered to Maria. "I thought you passed the thieves guild training already."
"I swapped out the fighter soul, I wasn't using it." Maria whispered back, "My weapon uses dexterity anyway."
"And finally, at first place, although it seems second place is catching up now. At level five with three souls, Merlin." The developer finished talking as another developer took the stage. "Alright, well it seems we've got about three minutes left, so we can answer a couple questions if anyone has any, but afterwards we're going to have to clear the briefing room for the next group."
It didn't seem as though anybody had questions to ask, so the developers started getting prepared for the next briefing while the first group slowly began shambling out of the briefing room.
Arthur's group continued chatting as they made it outside, and they eventually said goodbye and began splitting up on their way home. Arthur walked over to where Donovan usually parked, only to find that he wasn't there yet. He gave Donovan a call asking where he was, only to be told that he would be there in about five minutes.
"That's unlike him." Arthur mumbled to himself as he waited, he looked around to see what other people were doing. After about seven minutes, Arthur noticed Donovan's car speeding down the road, it screeched to a halt as it got close to the curb.
"Sorry I'm late. Get in." Donovan rolled the windows down, he seemed impatient today, so Arthur did as he was told.
Donovan started driving again the second Arthur entered the car and closed the door, not even giving him a chance to put his seat belt on before the car started moving.
"Alright, what's going on?" Arthur said with a mildly annoyed voice as he plugged his seat belt in. "You're being impatient, what happened?"
Donovan didn't even look at Arthur, he was focused on the road. Arthur slammed his fist on the dashboard, causing Donovan to jump and his focus to be disturbed. Arthur then repeated his question, he was rather annoyed at that point.
"Sorry. It's just... Stressful in the lab right now." Donovan seemed partially lost in thought as he tried to think of a way to explain his plight. "That experiment thing, you know... The one that breaks everything."
"The reactor, what about it?" Arthur knew that at this point people knew it was a reactor, although they didn't know the details about it. And nobody but a select few knew anything about the space crystal that powered it.
"Ah, you know about-- anyways. Well it's been having issues today, and they're taking too long to fix." Donovan began stumbling his words, but he still made sure he didn't leak anything too confidential. "There's a government inspection on the project tomorrow, so the scheduled testing has to be delayed until late at night while they fix the damn thing."
"That's all I can tell you, but basically your father won't be sleeping at home tonight." He said, before mumbling one more thing under his breath. "And neither will I..."
Donovan eventually dropped Arthur off at his house before driving back to the laboratory. Arthur made his way inside and did his usual daily routine, watering his plants, working out, changing his clothes. He turned his computer on but was feeling too tired to play anything, so he just laid in bed for a few hours while reading.
Eventually his sister and father came home and began preparing food, Arthur went down and helped out for a change. He noticed that his father seemed stressed out and tired, but he didn't voice any complaints over dinner.
After dinner, he told Arthur and Anna that he had to finish off some work at the laboratory tonight before leaving. This came as a surprise to Anna, but Arthur knew this beforehand.
"Father going back to work at night, there's something I haven't seen in a long while." Anna remarked as she and Arthur cleaned up after dinner. "I hope everything's alright."
"It should be fine, he's just nervous about the government inspection." Arthur reassured her.
"Government inspection? How do you kno-- Ah, Donovan." Anna was about to ask how he knew something she didn't, but then she remembered that Donovan always had a big mouth.
"Yeah. Well, I'm gonna get ready for bed, I'm tired today." Arthur said as he started making his way back to his room. "Goodnight!"
Arthur made his way back to his room, brushed his teeth and then hopped back into bed. He could feel a strange sense of lethargy taking over him as he tried to read his book. After almost dropping the book on his face, he decided that it was time to sleep.
A wave of nausea hit him next, and as he tried placing his book down on the bedside table, he missed, causing the book to tumble to the floor. Arthur just decided that he'd get it tomorrow, he believed he was coming down with some kind of illness and needed the rest.
Arthur tried to sleep, hoping that a good night's sleep would help him in fighting his ailment. But following the nausea was a sharp stabbing pain in his head. It was painful, but not painful enough that he'd fight his nausea and lethargy to get out of bed and find pain medication.
Unfortunately it was enough pain to keep him awake. Arthur could feel his body start heating up and getting sweaty, uncomfortable feelings that contributed even further to the fact he was never going to fall asleep naturally. Until his body finally lost consciousness.
Arthur suddenly found himself floating around in an endless black void.
There was no uncomfortable clammy feeling anywhere on his body, no lethargy, no pain, no nausea. It was like everything that was irritating him suddenly vanished, along with everything else.
Arthur was floating in the void for what felt like hours, unable to move around of his own free will, or even make any sounds, it was frustrating. He felt helpless, trapped in his own body, unable to wake up and escape from the lonely void he found himself in.
But as he felt the frustration rise until he almost couldn't take it anymore, things started to appear around him. These things ranged from loose items to entire scenes, but their stay was brief. It wasn't long after they first appeared that they vanished once more.
He was still floating around helplessly, but at least he had something to look at now. Various scenes came and went as he floated within the void. His body phased through anything it came in contact with, like he was playing with a hologram.
Suddenly the scenery changed once more, although this one didn't vanish after a few seconds passed.
Arthur found himself floating around what he could only assume was part of his family's laboratory. The walls were a familiar industrial white with cobalt blue lines and decoration, but he had never entered this part of the building before.
Arthur hovered around this scene, trying to take in as much information as he could. There were several people running around wearing protective gear, some had clipboards, others had various engineering tools, but they all seemed stressed out and extremely busy.
They all seemed to be focused on the metal sphere in the centre of the room, it was anchored onto a large gyroscope frame that allowed for unrestricted rotation. Arthur couldn't explain why, but the thing was rotating, seemingly on its own, and it was rotating fast. Arthur caught a glimpse of a murky yellow crystal through the metal sphere's window, and then he knew what this device was. It was an early prototype of the reactor, the one doomed to fail.
"Get away from it!" Arthur heard a familiar voice yelling at the workers on the ground floor, his eyes locked onto a man that was standing atop the balcony overlooking the room, it was his father.
The reactor began letting off loud scratching noises as it continued to speed up. Arthur noticed that it began letting out bright sparks of white energy, and unfortunately a few people on the ground floor weren't fast enough to get away from it.
Three workers were struck by a bright bolt of white lightning that flew out from the reactor. Arthur watched as their bodies dropped to the floor.
Before Arthur could see anything else, the scenery faded away, and he was back in the darkness once more.
Arthur was left in the darkness for another lengthy period of time, he was trying to piece together what happened, and tried to remember if something similar happened in the last timeline, but he couldn't remember.
Without giving him any more time to organise his thoughts, Arthur found himself dropped into another scene.
As he looked around, he noticed that it all felt familiar. He was dropped into the kitchen of his house, but it was much different to the kitchen in the current timeline. There were several new kitchen appliances sitting around, a massive spice rack that was filled with a large variety of spices, most of which you'd rarely ever use.
It was almost like he was dropped a few years into the future, where Anna decided to attend a cooking class in her free time before eventually claiming the kitchen as her own, filling it up with several useless gadgets she never used.
His body hovered towards the fridge, where he saw his sister rummaging through it.
"Damn, we need more eggs." She mumbled to herself as she pulled an egg carton out of the fridge. She pulled out the last remaining egg, placing it on the kitchen counter. "I need to go shopping."
Arthur heard footsteps coming from behind him, and then he remembered what this scene was.
"Hey, I'm going to go walk to the shops, do you want anything?" Anna asked the person who was currently walking towards Arthur. And then they suddenly walked through him like he wasn't there.
"No, I'm good." The mysterious man spoke, his voice was incredibly familiar. "Why don't you get Donovan to drive you there?"
"I need the exercise." Anna retorted as she grabbed her keys and wallet and made her way outside. "I'll be back soon."
'No, no, no. Please, no. Why do I have to relive this.' Arthur's mind began racing, he didn't want to see this anymore, he couldn't. He begged anything and everything to wake him up, but nothing happened, nothing could help him.
Arthur helplessly floated along, following his sister outside, he briefly turned around and stared at the face of the mysterious man. It was his own face, albeit slightly older looking.
But unexpectedly, his clone suddenly turned his head and stared directly at him.
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