“So, um, hey, I’m J-, I mean, I’m Red Death. The lift down is this way,” Red Death gestured towards the back of the hangar.

Grinning at the Haxlard’s name, Alan said, “I’m Alan, lead the way.”

Once they emerged from the building through a reception area, Alan stared at his surroundings. In front of him was the public square, and with it were thousands of players of all sorts and size going about their business. A towering behemoth in a mechanized suit, small green plant-men wearing dark green robes and a group of figures in black armor levitating over the ground were but a few players that caught Alan’s interest. For the most part, everyone appeared to be surprisingly humanoid, with slight differences. A more exotic skin color, a surprising appendage, a strange item of clothing or a difference in size was all that would set most apart. A cosplayer from any large convention would fit right in with this crowd; no one would even take a second glance at them.

Everyone was either headed to the center of the plaza, towards the pyramid-shaped building looming in the distance, or back towards a different quadrant of Khersath. Numerous stalls were set up, full of merchants and players hawking their wares, from exotic foods to standard weaponry and ammo. Other than the designated spaces for merchants that were spread out every couple hundred feet, there was no main road. Just open space and chaos.

A hundred different sights, sounds and smells assaulted Alan’s senses: loud roars of spaceships overhead, the constant murmur of voices from an inhumanly deep baritone to an eerily angelic high-pitched chant, a battle between two miniature robots, a crowd betting on the outcome, a blur of movement to his left so fast that by the time he looked it was gone and a horrendous body odor which was quickly replaced by the aroma of a delicate spice. It was overwhelming. Alan could barely process it all, and he could feel Eve going haywire as she tried to analyze and categorize the entire environment.

Alan realized he had stood, mouth agape, right at the entrance to the building for nearly ten seconds, but Red Death didn’t seem to mind. Alan quickly stepped aside to let a delivery through. Shaking his head, shutting his eyes, Alan tried to get his bearings back.

“So, um, Red Death, where is the Administrative Center?” he asked.

“You don’t know? It’s that building right there, of course.”

Red Death pointed towards the center of the plaza, at the towering outline of the pyramid building Alan had seen from space. The building rose so high that the top was lost in a sea of clouds. Its base was simply massive, Eve labeled one side to be at least a few miles. The entirety of the Golden Gate Bridge would span about half the length.

Looking up, Alan stared at the sky. It felt strange, knowing that this planet was different from Earth, yet the sky looked similar, with a rising sun, white clouds and a blue atmosphere. The sun was too bright to directly stare at, but Alan was pretty sure it was yellow. It would be interesting to see what the skies of the levels below-ground looked like. The number of people and structures here amazed Alan, but if the globalnet was to be believed, this was but one level of hundreds.