Which COUNTRY or PLANET outside of the USA would you like to visit the most? OUTSIDE OF "United States".
1. 03:17 Server Time, Moonglade The moon over Moonglade was always a little too large, like a texture that had been stretched past its intended resolution. Lilliandra—Night-Elf Druid, Resto main, 478 item level—sat on the dock, legs dangling, watching the ripples her hooves made. The rest of her guild had logged off an hour ago, their Discord voices replaced by the soft loop of night ambience and the occasional splash of a jumping fish. She opened her friends list. Only one name glowed green: Milkteeth, a Gnome Rogue she had met in a Tol Barad PuG six years ago. They had never spoken outside of emotes and the odd “lol” in /say, but he was the last familiar face on a server that had quietly died. Lilliandra whispered: still awake? The reply came instantly. couldn’t sleep. the cat’s snoring sounds like a V-22 Osprey. She laughed, the kind that came out like a sigh. i’m flying to stormwind tomorrow. want one last nostalgia lap? race you to the tram 2. 03:29, Deeprun Tram They met at the halfway point, where the tunnel lights flicker like dying fluorescents. Milkteeth had transmogged into the old Defias set—bandana, ragged leathers—so he looked like a refugee from 2005. Lilliandra kept her Antorus raid gear; she liked the way the shoulders still left tiny nebula-trails in motion. They didn’t talk at first, just jumped the gap between cars, spamming /train noises. A level-ten Human watched them, probably wondering if this was what endgame looked like. you ever think about quitting for good? she typed. every tuesday. but then i remember my herb garden in halfhill. can’t let the digital pumpkins wither. i’m scared if i leave, nobody will remember my trees. the pixels or the people? She didn’t answer. Instead she popped into cat form and sprinted the length of the tram, Milkteeth stealthed behind her, two ghosts in a place no raid ever required. 3. 04:02, Goldshire Inn The inn on Moonglade-US had become an ERP nightclub years ago, but at this hour it was empty except for a pair of Dwarves passed out near the fireplace. Lilliandra and Milkteeth parked themselves on the second-floor balcony. i have a confession, she said. this character isn’t even my first druid. i server-transferred and renamed so many times i lost count. every hop i left pieces behind—friends, inside jokes, a guild bank full of snowballs. i’m on my fourth account, he replied. forgot the birthday on the second, got permabanned on the third for wall-jumping into old hyjal. each time i swear i’ll start fresh, no baggage. always end up rolling gnome rogue, though. can’t quit the eyebrows. do you ever feel like we’re not playing the game anymore—just curating our own museum? museums are for dead things. we’re still glitching through walls. A level-one Night-Elf, clearly brand-new, walked in, looked around, then /sat at their table. No armor, just the starter braids. hi, the newcomer typed. is this the place where people talk about life? Lilliandra felt the tram-lightning still crackling in her veins. She traded the elf a set of sixteen-slot bags and 10,000 gold. welcome to the museum, she said. try not to touch the exhibits. 4. 04:40, Deadmines (Legacy) They queued for the classic version, the one that scaled you down to level twenty. The system paired them with three strangers: a Human Hunter named DadBodx, a Worgen Warlock, and a Draenei Shaman who never spoke. Lilliandra healed in her resto spec, which was absurd overkill; Milkteeth one-shot everything with Ambush crits. They raced through, skipping the cannon gauntlet because DadBodx knew the jump skip. At the boat, DadBodx asked: anyone else here for the sound the old parrot used to make? yes! Lilliandra replied. it was like a kazoo being stepped on. i used to farm this place with my kid. he’s in college now. still got the same parrot in a cage in my bank. does he still play? nah. last xpac he said the graphics looked like homework. The boss fell. Nobody rolled on the loot; they just stood on the deck, watching the lanterns sway. i think i’m done, DadBodx typed. thanks for the run. He hearthed. The Shaman left without a word. Milkteeth looked at Lilliandra. we could keep the group open. three of us, no destination. like a permanent dungeon tour? until the servers go dark. 5. 05:12, Orgrimmar (via Warlock Summon) They had the Warlock drop a portal outside the Drag. Horde territory on a dead server at five in the morning felt like trespassing in a ghost mall. They stealthed past the auctioneers, climbed to the rooftops, and found the old kodo skull pile that still hadn’t been updated. Lilliandra /kneeled. i used to have nightmares about this city. when i was a kid, my older brother played Horde. he’d chase me around on his tauren yelling “moo moo die.” i rolled alliance just to spite him. we haven’t spoken since cataclysm. my mom thought wow was a satanic cult, Milkteeth said. she caught me raiding at 3 a.m. and pulled the power strip. we lost the lockout, entire guild disbanded. i told her she ruined forty lives. she said they weren’t real. i moved out the next month. They sat in silence until the skybox turned the color of sickly peaches—morning in Durotar. i’m going to bed, she said. but not logging off. if you stay in group, the instance id stays open. we can leave our characters here, mid-air, forever. like a save state in an emulator. exactly. what if the maintenance team finds us? tell them we’re exhibits. 6. 12:00 Server Time, Two Weeks Later The forums announced Moonglade-US would be merged into Shadowburn. Names would be forcibly changed if duplicates existed. Guild banks would be compressed. “We appreciate your patience as we optimize your experience.” Lilliandra read the blue post on her phone during her lunch break at the veterinary clinic. A beagle had peed on her scrubs; she smelled like anxiety and antiseptic. She opened the WoW companion app. Milkteeth was offline—three days. She drove home, booted her PC, and logged in. The server select screen already listed her new home: Shadowburn. She hesitated, then chose it. Her character loaded on the roof in Orgrimmar, exactly where she’d left herself, but the sky was different—brighter, higher resolution. The merge had happened. A whisper popped up from a random name: hey, you’re in the same coordinates as my bank alt. spooky. She looked around. Dozens of players milled about, merged refugees, all trying to figure out which names were theirs. She opened friends list. Milkteeth was gone—name changed to Tippytops. She whispered immediately. it’s me, the tree. lilli? i don’t recognize half my hotbar. they forced a rename. said “milkteeth” was taken. i’ve been milkteeth since 2008. meet me where we started. 7. 12:20, Moonglade (Shadowburn) The new server had cross-realm sharding; the dock was crowded with tourists farming the rare moonstalker. She couldn’t find a quiet ripple. Tippytops arrived, same gnome, same eyebrows, but the nameplate felt like a scar. They hopped onto the lowest beam of the dock, away from the crowd. i don’t want to re-introduce myself to the world, he said. i liked being anonymous in my own hometown. we could transfer off. start over on an rp realm, pretend we’re npcs. and keep running from merges until blizzard pulls the plug? She stared at the oversized moon. maybe the game isn’t the place anymore. maybe we’re supposed to carry the museum in our pockets. you mean like… exchange numbers? meet irl? that’s dangerously close to friendship. or we could delete together. count down from three, hit the button simultaneously. go out like Butch and Sundance. He considered. i’d still reroll gnome. i’d still find you. it’s inevitable—like a gravitational pull of nostalgia. A level-one night-elf ran past, the same one she’d given bags to weeks ago. Now the elf wore heirloom shoulders and had a battle-pet out. see? the exhibits grow. 8. 13:00, Character Select They made a new account on a new realm: Atiesh-US, Pacific, medium pop. No boosts, no heirlooms, no gold. They picked classes they’d never mained: she a Shaman, he a Paladin. They called themselves Seedling and Tobias. No reference, no history. They levelled in silence, only speaking in /say, as if words cost copper. At level ten they entered Westfall, saw the new Defias textures, the updated Murloc sounds. Seedling typed: it’s smaller than i remember. Tobias replied: or we got bigger. They reached the lighthouse at the edge of the zone, the one that doesn’t have a quest anymore. They sat, watching the sun hit the water at an angle that made it look polygonal. i don’t want to join a guild, she said. i don’t want to need anything. let’s make a two-person one. call it*—*** She interrupted. “Offline.” They created it. Guild tag: <Offline>. No tabard. No bank. Just the two of them. 9. 14:30, Stormwind Park (Rebuilt) The park had finally regrown. Players fished in the pond, couples roleplayed weddings on the grass. Seedling and Tobias sat on the retaining wall. i think i’m done server-hopping, she said. i’ll stay here, let the expansions come. maybe one day i’ll be the weird old lady who remembers when this tree was a crater. i’ll be the weird old man who insists on walking everywhere because mounts ruin immersion. They added each other to Battle.net. Real names, no tags. promise me something, she said. if either of us vanishes for a year, the other one writes a final letter in-game and leaves it in the fountain. what if the fountain gets updated out? then we pick a new spot. the letter just has to exist somewhere in the world. even if no one reads it, the database will remember. deal. They logged off simultaneously, characters kneeling side by side, faces toward the water. 10. Epilogue: 00:00 Server Time, Any Realm Nobody noticed the two entries in the character database: Seedling, Shaman, Atiesh, last online 214 days ago. Tobias, Paladin, Atiesh, last online 214 days ago. If you datamine the fountain, you’ll find an item: Letter to Tobias “The moon is smaller here, but the ripples feel the same. I kept my promise: I remember. If you ever come back, I’ll be the lighthouse.” And under a kodo skull in Orgrimmar, another item: Letter to Lilliandra “I found the old tram skip. The gap is still jumpable. The museum is portable after all. See you in the emulator.” The servers keep spinning, merges and splits like tectonic plates. But in the static between zones, if you listen, you can still hear two ghosts racing the Deeprun tracks, counting down from three, hitting delete, and immediately rerolling—because the world never ends; it just reloads.
What's your current location (zipcode or city)?
1. 03:17 Server Time, Moonglade The moon over Moonglade was always a little too large, like a texture that had been stretched past its intended resolution. Lilliandra—Night-Elf Druid, Resto main, 478 item level—sat on the dock, legs dangling, watching the ripples her hooves made. The rest of her guild had logged off an hour ago, their Discord voices replaced by the soft loop of night ambience and the occasional splash of a jumping fish. She opened her friends list. Only one name glowed green: Milkteeth, a Gnome Rogue she had met in a Tol Barad PuG six years ago. They had never spoken outside of emotes and the odd “lol” in /say, but he was the last familiar face on a server that had quietly died. Lilliandra whispered: still awake? The reply came instantly. couldn’t sleep. the cat’s snoring sounds like a V-22 Osprey. She laughed, the kind that came out like a sigh. i’m flying to stormwind tomorrow. want one last nostalgia lap? race you to the tram 2. 03:29, Deeprun Tram They met at the halfway point, where the tunnel lights flicker like dying fluorescents. Milkteeth had transmogged into the old Defias set—bandana, ragged leathers—so he looked like a refugee from 2005. Lilliandra kept her Antorus raid gear; she liked the way the shoulders still left tiny nebula-trails in motion. They didn’t talk at first, just jumped the gap between cars, spamming /train noises. A level-ten Human watched them, probably wondering if this was what endgame looked like. you ever think about quitting for good? she typed. every tuesday. but then i remember my herb garden in halfhill. can’t let the digital pumpkins wither. i’m scared if i leave, nobody will remember my trees. the pixels or the people? She didn’t answer. Instead she popped into cat form and sprinted the length of the tram, Milkteeth stealthed behind her, two ghosts in a place no raid ever required. 3. 04:02, Goldshire Inn The inn on Moonglade-US had become an ERP nightclub years ago, but at this hour it was empty except for a pair of Dwarves passed out near the fireplace. Lilliandra and Milkteeth parked themselves on the second-floor balcony. i have a confession, she said. this character isn’t even my first druid. i server-transferred and renamed so many times i lost count. every hop i left pieces behind—friends, inside jokes, a guild bank full of snowballs. i’m on my fourth account, he replied. forgot the birthday on the second, got permabanned on the third for wall-jumping into old hyjal. each time i swear i’ll start fresh, no baggage. always end up rolling gnome rogue, though. can’t quit the eyebrows. do you ever feel like we’re not playing the game anymore—just curating our own museum? museums are for dead things. we’re still glitching through walls. A level-one Night-Elf, clearly brand-new, walked in, looked around, then /sat at their table. No armor, just the starter braids. hi, the newcomer typed. is this the place where people talk about life? Lilliandra felt the tram-lightning still crackling in her veins. She traded the elf a set of sixteen-slot bags and 10,000 gold. welcome to the museum, she said. try not to touch the exhibits. 4. 04:40, Deadmines (Legacy) They queued for the classic version, the one that scaled you down to level twenty. The system paired them with three strangers: a Human Hunter named DadBodx, a Worgen Warlock, and a Draenei Shaman who never spoke. Lilliandra healed in her resto spec, which was absurd overkill; Milkteeth one-shot everything with Ambush crits. They raced through, skipping the cannon gauntlet because DadBodx knew the jump skip. At the boat, DadBodx asked: anyone else here for the sound the old parrot used to make? yes! Lilliandra replied. it was like a kazoo being stepped on. i used to farm this place with my kid. he’s in college now. still got the same parrot in a cage in my bank. does he still play? nah. last xpac he said the graphics looked like homework. The boss fell. Nobody rolled on the loot; they just stood on the deck, watching the lanterns sway. i think i’m done, DadBodx typed. thanks for the run. He hearthed. The Shaman left without a word. Milkteeth looked at Lilliandra. we could keep the group open. three of us, no destination. like a permanent dungeon tour? until the servers go dark. 5. 05:12, Orgrimmar (via Warlock Summon) They had the Warlock drop a portal outside the Drag. Horde territory on a dead server at five in the morning felt like trespassing in a ghost mall. They stealthed past the auctioneers, climbed to the rooftops, and found the old kodo skull pile that still hadn’t been updated. Lilliandra /kneeled. i used to have nightmares about this city. when i was a kid, my older brother played Horde. he’d chase me around on his tauren yelling “moo moo die.” i rolled alliance just to spite him. we haven’t spoken since cataclysm. my mom thought wow was a satanic cult, Milkteeth said. she caught me raiding at 3 a.m. and pulled the power strip. we lost the lockout, entire guild disbanded. i told her she ruined forty lives. she said they weren’t real. i moved out the next month. They sat in silence until the skybox turned the color of sickly peaches—morning in Durotar. i’m going to bed, she said. but not logging off. if you stay in group, the instance id stays open. we can leave our characters here, mid-air, forever. like a save state in an emulator. exactly. what if the maintenance team finds us? tell them we’re exhibits. 6. 12:00 Server Time, Two Weeks Later The forums announced Moonglade-US would be merged into Shadowburn. Names would be forcibly changed if duplicates existed. Guild banks would be compressed. “We appreciate your patience as we optimize your experience.” Lilliandra read the blue post on her phone during her lunch break at the veterinary clinic. A beagle had peed on her scrubs; she smelled like anxiety and antiseptic. She opened the WoW companion app. Milkteeth was offline—three days. She drove home, booted her PC, and logged in. The server select screen already listed her new home: Shadowburn. She hesitated, then chose it. Her character loaded on the roof in Orgrimmar, exactly where she’d left herself, but the sky was different—brighter, higher resolution. The merge had happened. A whisper popped up from a random name: hey, you’re in the same coordinates as my bank alt. spooky. She looked around. Dozens of players milled about, merged refugees, all trying to figure out which names were theirs. She opened friends list. Milkteeth was gone—name changed to Tippytops. She whispered immediately. it’s me, the tree. lilli? i don’t recognize half my hotbar. they forced a rename. said “milkteeth” was taken. i’ve been milkteeth since 2008. meet me where we started. 7. 12:20, Moonglade (Shadowburn) The new server had cross-realm sharding; the dock was crowded with tourists farming the rare moonstalker. She couldn’t find a quiet ripple. Tippytops arrived, same gnome, same eyebrows, but the nameplate felt like a scar. They hopped onto the lowest beam of the dock, away from the crowd. i don’t want to re-introduce myself to the world, he said. i liked being anonymous in my own hometown. we could transfer off. start over on an rp realm, pretend we’re npcs. and keep running from merges until blizzard pulls the plug? She stared at the oversized moon. maybe the game isn’t the place anymore. maybe we’re supposed to carry the museum in our pockets. you mean like… exchange numbers? meet irl? that’s dangerously close to friendship. or we could delete together. count down from three, hit the button simultaneously. go out like Butch and Sundance. He considered. i’d still reroll gnome. i’d still find you. it’s inevitable—like a gravitational pull of nostalgia. A level-one night-elf ran past, the same one she’d given bags to weeks ago. Now the elf wore heirloom shoulders and had a battle-pet out. see? the exhibits grow. 8. 13:00, Character Select They made a new account on a new realm: Atiesh-US, Pacific, medium pop. No boosts, no heirlooms, no gold. They picked classes they’d never mained: she a Shaman, he a Paladin. They called themselves Seedling and Tobias. No reference, no history. They levelled in silence, only speaking in /say, as if words cost copper. At level ten they entered Westfall, saw the new Defias textures, the updated Murloc sounds. Seedling typed: it’s smaller than i remember. Tobias replied: or we got bigger. They reached the lighthouse at the edge of the zone, the one that doesn’t have a quest anymore. They sat, watching the sun hit the water at an angle that made it look polygonal. i don’t want to join a guild, she said. i don’t want to need anything. let’s make a two-person one. call it*—*** She interrupted. “Offline.” They created it. Guild tag: <Offline>. No tabard. No bank. Just the two of them. 9. 14:30, Stormwind Park (Rebuilt) The park had finally regrown. Players fished in the pond, couples roleplayed weddings on the grass. Seedling and Tobias sat on the retaining wall. i think i’m done server-hopping, she said. i’ll stay here, let the expansions come. maybe one day i’ll be the weird old lady who remembers when this tree was a crater. i’ll be the weird old man who insists on walking everywhere because mounts ruin immersion. They added each other to Battle.net. Real names, no tags. promise me something, she said. if either of us vanishes for a year, the other one writes a final letter in-game and leaves it in the fountain. what if the fountain gets updated out? then we pick a new spot. the letter just has to exist somewhere in the world. even if no one reads it, the database will remember. deal. They logged off simultaneously, characters kneeling side by side, faces toward the water. 10. Epilogue: 00:00 Server Time, Any Realm Nobody noticed the two entries in the character database: Seedling, Shaman, Atiesh, last online 214 days ago. Tobias, Paladin, Atiesh, last online 214 days ago. If you datamine the fountain, you’ll find an item: Letter to Tobias “The moon is smaller here, but the ripples feel the same. I kept my promise: I remember. If you ever come back, I’ll be the lighthouse.” And under a kodo skull in Orgrimmar, another item: Letter to Lilliandra “I found the old tram skip. The gap is still jumpable. The museum is portable after all. See you in the emulator.” The servers keep spinning, merges and splits like tectonic plates. But in the static between zones, if you listen, you can still hear two ghosts racing the Deeprun tracks, counting down from three, hitting delete, and immediately rerolling—because the world never ends; it just reloads.
What vehicle do you drive or ride? Tell us about your dream overland vehicle! Please be specific - put BRAND and MODEL, 2 words minimum or your registration will not be approved
1. 03:17 Server Time, Moonglade
The moon over Moonglade was always a little too large, like a textur
Define "Overland"
1. 03:17 Server Time, Moonglade The moon over Moonglade was always a little too large, like a texture that had been stretched past its intended resolution. Lilliandra—Night-Elf Druid, Resto main, 478 item level—sat on the dock, legs dangling, watching the ripples her hooves made. The rest of her guild had logged off an hour ago, their Discord voices replaced by the soft loop of night ambience and the occasional splash of a jumping fish. She opened her friends list. Only one name glowed green: Milkteeth, a Gnome Rogue she had met in a Tol Barad PuG six years ago. They had never spoken outside of emotes and the odd “lol” in /say, but he was the last familiar face on a server that had quietly died. Lilliandra whispered: still awake? The reply came instantly. couldn’t sleep. the cat’s snoring sounds like a V-22 Osprey. She laughed, the kind that came out like a sigh. i’m flying to stormwind tomorrow. want one last nostalgia lap? race you to the tram 2. 03:29, Deeprun Tram They met at the halfway point, where the tunnel lights flicker like dying fluorescents. Milkteeth had transmogged into the old Defias set—bandana, ragged leathers—so he looked like a refugee from 2005. Lilliandra kept her Antorus raid gear; she liked the way the shoulders still left tiny nebula-trails in motion. They didn’t talk at first, just jumped the gap between cars, spamming /train noises. A level-ten Human watched them, probably wondering if this was what endgame looked like. you ever think about quitting for good? she typed. every tuesday. but then i remember my herb garden in halfhill. can’t let the digital pumpkins wither. i’m scared if i leave, nobody will remember my trees. the pixels or the people? She didn’t answer. Instead she popped into cat form and sprinted the length of the tram, Milkteeth stealthed behind her, two ghosts in a place no raid ever required. 3. 04:02, Goldshire Inn The inn on Moonglade-US had become an ERP nightclub years ago, but at this hour it was empty except for a pair of Dwarves passed out near the fireplace. Lilliandra and Milkteeth parked themselves on the second-floor balcony. i have a confession, she said. this character isn’t even my first druid. i server-transferred and renamed so many times i lost count. every hop i left pieces behind—friends, inside jokes, a guild bank full of snowballs. i’m on my fourth account, he replied. forgot the birthday on the second, got permabanned on the third for wall-jumping into old hyjal. each time i swear i’ll start fresh, no baggage. always end up rolling gnome rogue, though. can’t quit the eyebrows. do you ever feel like we’re not playing the game anymore—just curating our own museum? museums are for dead things. we’re still glitching through walls. A level-one Night-Elf, clearly brand-new, walked in, looked around, then /sat at their table. No armor, just the starter braids. hi, the newcomer typed. is this the place where people talk about life? Lilliandra felt the tram-lightning still crackling in her veins. She traded the elf a set of sixteen-slot bags and 10,000 gold. welcome to the museum, she said. try not to touch the exhibits. 4. 04:40, Deadmines (Legacy) They queued for the classic version, the one that scaled you down to level twenty. The system paired them with three strangers: a Human Hunter named DadBodx, a Worgen Warlock, and a Draenei Shaman who never spoke. Lilliandra healed in her resto spec, which was absurd overkill; Milkteeth one-shot everything with Ambush crits. They raced through, skipping the cannon gauntlet because DadBodx knew the jump skip. At the boat, DadBodx asked: anyone else here for the sound the old parrot used to make? yes! Lilliandra replied. it was like a kazoo being stepped on. i used to farm this place with my kid. he’s in college now. still got the same parrot in a cage in my bank. does he still play? nah. last xpac he said the graphics looked like homework. The boss fell. Nobody rolled on the loot; they just stood on the deck, watching the lanterns sway. i think i’m done, DadBodx typed. thanks for the run. He hearthed. The Shaman left without a word. Milkteeth looked at Lilliandra. we could keep the group open. three of us, no destination. like a permanent dungeon tour? until the servers go dark. 5. 05:12, Orgrimmar (via Warlock Summon) They had the Warlock drop a portal outside the Drag. Horde territory on a dead server at five in the morning felt like trespassing in a ghost mall. They stealthed past the auctioneers, climbed to the rooftops, and found the old kodo skull pile that still hadn’t been updated. Lilliandra /kneeled. i used to have nightmares about this city. when i was a kid, my older brother played Horde. he’d chase me around on his tauren yelling “moo moo die.” i rolled alliance just to spite him. we haven’t spoken since cataclysm. my mom thought wow was a satanic cult, Milkteeth said. she caught me raiding at 3 a.m. and pulled the power strip. we lost the lockout, entire guild disbanded. i told her she ruined forty lives. she said they weren’t real. i moved out the next month. They sat in silence until the skybox turned the color of sickly peaches—morning in Durotar. i’m going to bed, she said. but not logging off. if you stay in group, the instance id stays open. we can leave our characters here, mid-air, forever. like a save state in an emulator. exactly. what if the maintenance team finds us? tell them we’re exhibits. 6. 12:00 Server Time, Two Weeks Later The forums announced Moonglade-US would be merged into Shadowburn. Names would be forcibly changed if duplicates existed. Guild banks would be compressed. “We appreciate your patience as we optimize your experience.” Lilliandra read the blue post on her phone during her lunch break at the veterinary clinic. A beagle had peed on her scrubs; she smelled like anxiety and antiseptic. She opened the WoW companion app. Milkteeth was offline—three days. She drove home, booted her PC, and logged in. The server select screen already listed her new home: Shadowburn. She hesitated, then chose it. Her character loaded on the roof in Orgrimmar, exactly where she’d left herself, but the sky was different—brighter, higher resolution. The merge had happened. A whisper popped up from a random name: hey, you’re in the same coordinates as my bank alt. spooky. She looked around. Dozens of players milled about, merged refugees, all trying to figure out which names were theirs. She opened friends list. Milkteeth was gone—name changed to Tippytops. She whispered immediately. it’s me, the tree. lilli? i don’t recognize half my hotbar. they forced a rename. said “milkteeth” was taken. i’ve been milkteeth since 2008. meet me where we started. 7. 12:20, Moonglade (Shadowburn) The new server had cross-realm sharding; the dock was crowded with tourists farming the rare moonstalker. She couldn’t find a quiet ripple. Tippytops arrived, same gnome, same eyebrows, but the nameplate felt like a scar. They hopped onto the lowest beam of the dock, away from the crowd. i don’t want to re-introduce myself to the world, he said. i liked being anonymous in my own hometown. we could transfer off. start over on an rp realm, pretend we’re npcs. and keep running from merges until blizzard pulls the plug? She stared at the oversized moon. maybe the game isn’t the place anymore. maybe we’re supposed to carry the museum in our pockets. you mean like… exchange numbers? meet irl? that’s dangerously close to friendship. or we could delete together. count down from three, hit the button simultaneously. go out like Butch and Sundance. He considered. i’d still reroll gnome. i’d still find you. it’s inevitable—like a gravitational pull of nostalgia. A level-one night-elf ran past, the same one she’d given bags to weeks ago. Now the elf wore heirloom shoulders and had a battle-pet out. see? the exhibits grow. 8. 13:00, Character Select They made a new account on a new realm: Atiesh-US, Pacific, medium pop. No boosts, no heirlooms, no gold. They picked classes they’d never mained: she a Shaman, he a Paladin. They called themselves Seedling and Tobias. No reference, no history. They levelled in silence, only speaking in /say, as if words cost copper. At level ten they entered Westfall, saw the new Defias textures, the updated Murloc sounds. Seedling typed: it’s smaller than i remember. Tobias replied: or we got bigger. They reached the lighthouse at the edge of the zone, the one that doesn’t have a quest anymore. They sat, watching the sun hit the water at an angle that made it look polygonal. i don’t want to join a guild, she said. i don’t want to need anything. let’s make a two-person one. call it*—*** She interrupted. “Offline.” They created it. Guild tag: <Offline>. No tabard. No bank. Just the two of them. 9. 14:30, Stormwind Park (Rebuilt) The park had finally regrown. Players fished in the pond, couples roleplayed weddings on the grass. Seedling and Tobias sat on the retaining wall. i think i’m done server-hopping, she said. i’ll stay here, let the expansions come. maybe one day i’ll be the weird old lady who remembers when this tree was a crater. i’ll be the weird old man who insists on walking everywhere because mounts ruin immersion. They added each other to Battle.net. Real names, no tags. promise me something, she said. if either of us vanishes for a year, the other one writes a final letter in-game and leaves it in the fountain. what if the fountain gets updated out? then we pick a new spot. the letter just has to exist somewhere in the world. even if no one reads it, the database will remember. deal. They logged off simultaneously, characters kneeling side by side, faces toward the water. 10. Epilogue: 00:00 Server Time, Any Realm Nobody noticed the two entries in the character database: Seedling, Shaman, Atiesh, last online 214 days ago. Tobias, Paladin, Atiesh, last online 214 days ago. If you datamine the fountain, you’ll find an item: Letter to Tobias “The moon is smaller here, but the ripples feel the same. I kept my promise: I remember. If you ever come back, I’ll be the lighthouse.” And under a kodo skull in Orgrimmar, another item: Letter to Lilliandra “I found the old tram skip. The gap is still jumpable. The museum is portable after all. See you in the emulator.” The servers keep spinning, merges and splits like tectonic plates. But in the static between zones, if you listen, you can still hear two ghosts racing the Deeprun tracks, counting down from three, hitting delete, and immediately rerolling—because the world never ends; it just reloads.
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