Pixelate

Arnold O'Connor is a gamer who just lost his office job to AI. Short on cash, he can appreciate the irony of taking a job at an indie gaming company looking to train their monster AI. But Anachronism Interactive isn't looking for players to copy from, they're interested in gamer brains to scan. After being run through a series of psychological tests while hooked up to a brain scanner, Arnold finally gets a chance to check out the game these scientists have been making.

Freshly unemployed gamer Arnold O'Connor is short on cash and facing eviction. When an indie game developer advertises looking for participants in a brain study to help revolutionize enemy AI, he's not thinking about the benefits to his hobby, just his bank account. But things get weird once the trials start. Neuroscientists monitor his brain waves as Connor performs a variety of tasks, culminating in venturing into a testing version of the very game they're hoping to develop. The tests mess with his sense of reality, seeing things he can't touch and deafened to some sounds but not others.

Rather than emerging victorious into the real world, Arnold O'Connor finds himself back at the beginning of Spires of Fate. This time, it's an alpha build he'd stuck inside, and he's forced to choose an entirely different class. With no outside help, he'll have to find allies within the game if he hopes to escape. What's old is new again as parts of the game world have been fixed, updated, or simply overhauled. New challenges await. New adversaries threaten. And waiting at the top of the spire itself is a simple-sounding quest goal that supplants all others.

Connor and Dizzy have a problem. The game has rebooted yet again. Their names have been stolen, and they're limited to the advanced classes they earned last time around. On top of that, the beta version of Spires of Fate had enabled worldwide PVP combat. It's going to be the two of them not just against the world, but against the rest of the player base, too. But they know the game. They've got the experience. And the goal hasn't changed: get to the top and slay the Mountain Lord. And no dirty tricks by the developers are going to stop them.

He defeated the Mountain Lord. He won. But the game didn't end, it merely evolved. Taking on the title of his fallen predecessor, Mountain Lord Konroh gets his final task: defend the spire at any cost. A whole host of new systems open up. Erstwhile villains now owe Konroh their fealty. He can reassign monsters to new zones, teach his minions new strategies, and beef up his fortifications to his heart's desire. But everything come at a cost.