Solarversia: The Year Long Game Read Online Free PDF

clutches as it pulled him ever closer to the red-hot bath. His arms spasmed with pain as it finally dragged him under. An even worse start than hers.
    She arrived at the last obstacle, Nico’s Nets, feeling out of breath, though she hadn’t moved from the sofa all night. Virtual worlds could do strange things to the brain. She pinged Burner and Sushi to compare notes. They were further ahead and had managed to retain perfect health scores. How did that happen? Although Sushi and Burner were respectable gamers in their own right, they weren’t in Nova’s league, not close. She gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate.
    Nico’s Nets were stretched across a path — all players needed to do was crawl beneath them to cross it. On the other side, a finishing line displayed a count of people who had completed the obstacle course — over forty thousand — and also a count of people who had lost a life tackling it — nearly three thousand. She did her best to put thoughts of death out of her mind and to remain calm.
    The netting was plumbed in to the lava pit. An old man dressed in rags stood at the side and worked a brass stopcock covered in valves. He pointed at Nova and laughed. “Dare ye cross Nico’s Nets? If ye’s feeling cold, Nico will warm ye up.” He scowled and turned one of the valves to release several gallons of lava into the front section of hollow netting. A Dutch guy, halfway through, turned and screamed. Nova saw his health score decrease from one hundred to zero in the space of a few seconds. His avatar flashed a few times before disappearing. “Nico warmed that gentleman up, though some might say a bit too much. Who’s next?”
    The mechanics of the game were obvious — when the nets were blue, they were safe to crawl under; when they were red, lava coursed through them. She watched a few more people attempt it, trying to discern any patterns or tricks. It took her a couple of minutes to work out a plan. She crawled halfway and paused. It looked safe — but she knew better than to continue. As expected, the old man turned the rusty valve on the far side of the stopcock. The netting in front of her turned red while Nico taunted some new arrivals behind her. When the netting ahead changed back to blue she scrambled like mad, and got through unscathed.
    Just beyond the finishing line was a cube the size of her dad’s shed. The sides looked like they were on fire. It was a Corona Cube, like the one she had entered back in Castalia. Cubes like it were scattered all over Solarversia and acted as safe houses that avatars could stay in when players wanted to log out. While she was there, nobody could do her wrong.
    She stood in front of the cube and chewed on her lip. It had been such a long day, and after a couple of glasses of cider, she felt a bit dreamy. But it pained her to know that Burner and Sushi were further ahead than she was. And she wanted to pick up Flynn already. She volleyed her display back to the lounge for a second. Her mum had fallen asleep in her chair; her dad must have gone to bed.
    Volleying back to Solarversia, she walked up to the cube and passed straight through one of its faces as it turned transparent, content to have completed the obstacle course. This was a year-long game, not a piddly game of Monopoly. A marathon, not a sprint.
    Up in her room, Nova got into bed and lay awake for a while. Fragments of Solarversia were juxtaposed with pieces of reality. The gooey purple mess in the centre of the Magisterial Chamber was supposed to be the Emperor? She’d already lost a handful of health points? Images flickered in her mind: the flying palace, the lavadile snapping at her foot, her revision books.
    The last image wouldn’t budge. She only had three months until her exams, the ones that would determine the university she went to. If she made the grades she needed. They were exams that would affect the entire course her life, or so her teachers kept telling her. And now she