A/N: In the midst of this coronavirus quarantine, I have decided to revisit Aincrad Realized for the first time in years. Looking it over, I have decided to make retcons in order to better suit a new vision I have for this story. The most notable aspect is that I have deleted the NPCs from the story, seeing as the new ideas I have in mind for them don't provide a framework for their presence, both for reasons of plot and world-building. I won't say anything else, you'll have to find that yourselves.

And now, for a teaser of Act 2.

Act Two Teaser

A magician dressed in a raven cloak of metallic feathers turned to the white-collared priest and asked him, "Is reality a simulation?"

Father Geoffrey Hayward looked up from reading The Man in the High Castle and replied "That's a question you should be asking if I'm reading Gibson or Descartes."

"I don't have to conform my questions to your reading material," Iraza replied.

Hayward *harrumphed* at that. "Well, if you're asking me, then theologically speaking, yes, the world we live in can be called a simulation, for God and the full reality of His Presence and Heaven exist outside of the time and space that hold the world we live in together, which will one day pass. Why do you ask?"

"It's just that, considering recent circumstances from your home, I imagine that a great many people have been discussing the validity of that question."

Hayward rose over six feet. "What circumstances?"

"Hm," Iraza walked up the thin air to one of the walls of bookshelves, perusing it for a particular volume. "So Rome hasn't sent you word on the latest happenings yet? Nor have you received some divine premonition?"

"It seems the Lord has deigned that you are to be my messenger in this case," Hayward replied.

"Evidently so- there it is." Iraza plucked a thick brown leather-bound book from its slot, and immedately began rifling through its pages. "Someone attempted to build a new Tower."

Shock exploded onto the Roman priest's face. "WHAT?! Please don't tell me they succeeded!"

"No, but they came closer than anyone else in millennia," Iraza found the relevant section, and mentally compared it to the news he had learned. "As of right now, there's a giant magical castle just floating a couple miles right over Tokyo and scaring the sh- excuse me father - daylights out of everyone."

"Dear God," Father Hayward clasped his hands in front of himself and wailed at the loss of so many innocent souls who were sacrificed to make this possible.

Iraza, seeing his one friend in distress, closed the book and came to rest a couple inches above the ground at eye level with him.

"If it's any consolation, the man primarily responsible for the castle appears to be dead, and at the hands of one of those he intended to sacrifice no less."

Geoffrey wiped the tears from his eyes. "That is no consolation at all. He has almost surely died without repentance for his sins. If he was not in a state of grace, as I surely dread he is, then he may well be damned."

"Quite a few people will agree with you rather enthusiastically on that point, Father," he drifted past him to observe the shifting globe of opal gems that floated in the center of the section of the library below them. It currently displayed to him a gods-eye view of the whole of the castle of Aincrad, and the city of Tokyo beneath.

"A sea change is arriving," Father Hayward intoned, as he stood beside Iraza. "And the world has only witnessed the first tide."

"It's not coming like water, Father Hayward," Iraza then mentally directed the view to expand. Aincrad and Tokyo shrank, until they were only dots on the surface of the massive world map of Earth. Above it, a massive spiral spun upwards from the Earth, a series of multi-colored orbs dotting the path up, each with their own lands, waters and city lights upon them, and all of them connected at random with shining ribbons like shimmering roads.

"It's coming like fire."