The interior of the Skardosian airship didn't smell like coal, oil, or steam. It smelled of ozone, sterilized plastic, and the cold, clinical hum of a high-end server room. As I stood in the breach of the command deck, my sonic-pistol leveled at the cyborg Commander Kael, the world felt like it was "De-Fragging" around me. The air was thin, pumped through high-efficiency vents that bypassed the thick Valarian humidity outside. This wasn't just another kingdom; this was a "Closed-Beta" world hidden within the folds of my own.
But it was the woman behind Kael that had my "Internal Systems" crashing.
The Empress wasn't wearing her crown. She was wearing a sleek, charcoal-grey bodysuit made of a material that looked like liquid carbon fiber—a far cry from the velvet and "Silver-Silk" of the Valarian court. In her hand, she held a slim, glowing tablet—an interface that was unmistakably 21st-century tech.
