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“So, I take it this is the arena? ” Shoto said.

Aech nodded and spread her arms wide.

“Dream, if you can, a courtyard, ” she said. “An ocean of violets in bloom…”

Shoto grinned and cracked his knuckles.

“OK then, ” he said. “Let’s do this. ”

He took a few steps toward the temple entrance, but Aech grabbed him and pulled him back.

“Not yet, ” Aech said. “As soon as we cross that threshold, the shit storm will begin. We need to gear up first. ”

She opened her inventory and took out the Cloud Guitar she’d retrieved from First Avenue. She flipped it over, revealing a Love Symbol–shaped cavity in the back of its body, just like the one in the cockpit of our UFO. Aech took the glowing purple Love Symbol power cell out of her inventory, too, and slapped it into the back of the Cloud Guitar. It fit perfectly, like a battery. Then she flipped the guitar over again and pressed a small Love Symbol–shaped power button directly beneath its bridge. I heard a low harmonic hum that rapidly increased in volume as the strings, fret markers, and pickups began to glow and crackle with purple energy.

“You mentioned that you were taking guitar lessons, ” Aech said. “To learn how to play a real guitar? ”

“Yeah, ” I said, still staring at the instrument in her hands. “Why? ”

“Are you any good? ”

I shrugged and clenched my hands into fists, because I was worried they might start shaking.

“Well, I’m no Yngwie Malmsteen or anything, ” I said. “I’m still learning. ”

“School’s out, Yngwie, ” she said, holding the Cloud Guitar out to me. “Duty calls. ”

I reached out and took it from her carefully, using both hands, while bowing my head slightly, thinking about the time Shoto presented me with his slain brother’s sword.

“The Cloud Guitar is an Afterworld artifact, ” Aech said. “Its most powerful sonic attacks can only be activated if the wielder actually knows how to play the guitar, and can properly finger the chord progressions. None of that Guitar Hero stuff you pulled on Megadon will fly. This has to be the real deal. ”

“OK, ” I said, taking it from her. “Thanks, Aech. ”

“Open up its item description, ” she said. “Right now. Before we go in there, you need to memorize all of the special attack licks and power chords. This is one of the few weapons that will affect all seven iterations of the Purple One. But the guitar will overheat and explode after you use it to take one of the Princes down. So try to take out as many of his henchmen as you can with it first, before you go after one of the Seven. Got it? ”

“Prince has henchmen too? ” Shoto said. “Who are they? ”

“His backup bands, ” Aech said. “There are dozens of different NPC incarnations of Prince on this planet, depicting the Purple One during all of the different phases of his career. Depending on which seven incarnations we face, some of them may not have a backup band. Like Proto-Prince, because he played every single instrument on his first two albums. But if Graffiti Bridge Prince shows up, he’ll be backed by the New Power Generation. They will funk you up badly, my friend. The one you have to watch out for is Third-Eye Prince, because not only does he shoot percussive blasts of sonic enlightenment out of his third eye, he’s also backed up by 3RDEYEGIRL. If we have to face Purple Rain Prince and he’s backed up by the Revolution? We’re probably done, because they’re unstoppable, especially here on their home turf. ”

“But the Time is on our side, ” I said, glancing back at our henchmen. “They look pretty tough. ”

“They are, ” Aech said. “Prince created their band, but they were all so insanely talented that they evolved and grew into something beyond his control. They aren’t going to save us though, Z. If we’re really lucky, they might be able to help us take down Graffiti Bridge Prince and the NPG. Maybe even Proto-Prince too. But the others—” She shook her head. “No way, no day. It would take a miracle for us to survive this fight. I’m not trying to be negative here. I’m just trying to prepare you for what’s about to go down. ”

“Great, ” I said, slapping her on the back. “Excellent confidence booster. Thanks, Aech. ”

She turned to look at Shoto.

“What about you, ‘Living Correct’? ” she said. “Do you play any musical instruments? I mean, other than the kazoo? ”

Shoto scowled at her and shook his head. Aech sighed. Then she opened her inventory and took out a tambourine and tossed it to him. He caught it one-handed.

“Do your best with that, ” she told him.

“So what instrument do you play, Aech? ” Shoto asked indignantly.

“Don’t worry about me, ” she replied. “I sing. ” She glanced at me. “You ready to do this, Z? ”

I nodded and gave her a thumbs-up and she gave me one in return, then she took a deep breath and led us forward, through the open gates of the arena, with the original seven members of Morris Day and the Time backing us up.

When all ten members of our party had passed through the gates, it triggered a needle drop, and the song “Thieves in the Temple” began to play as a dense red fog appeared. It swirled around our legs as it rapidly blanketed the entire floor of the courtyard. Aech led us to the center of the arena, then motioned for us to stop there.

“The Three Chains of Gold will protect us from their attacks for a limited amount of time! ” she shouted to me and Shoto. “We need to make it count, and funk them up as much as we can, while we can! Understood? ”

Before we could reply, there was a booming crash of thunder, and streaks of purple lightning arced across the sky over our heads.

“Prepare yourselves for battle! ” Aech shouted to our entire crew. “The Seven are being teleported here now, from different parts of the Afterworld. ”

Then Aech said what she always used to say to me, whenever we appeared to be facing a no-win situation: “Nice working with you, Dr. Venkman. ”

This always used to make me chuckle, but now it hit too close to home.

“See ya on the other side, Ray, ” I recited, clutching the neck of the Cloud Guitar like it was a particle-thrower.

As we spoke, seven large glass cylinders began to rise up out of the billowing red fog, forming a wide circle around us. Each of these glass cylinders had a metal cap at the top and the bottom, like a giant fuse. And standing motionless inside each of them was a different incarnation of His Royal Badness. Each one had a different hairstyle and outfit, apparently representing different stylistic phases of Prince’s career.

Before I could get a good look at any of them through the fog, all seven chambers opened and the Seven Princes emerged in unison, stepping forward into the arena. As they did so, the menacing opening guitar riff of the song “When Doves Cry” began to echo through the arena at earsplitting volume. When the drums kicked in a few seconds later, all seven incarnations of Prince stretched out their arms as one and began to rise slowly from the ground. I craned my neck upward to see them all hovering directly above us, glaring down at us like seven angry Kryptonian gods intent on giving us a Smallville-style smackdown.

They were a terrifying sight to behold.

“Don’t look directly in their eyes! ” I heard Aech shout at us. “Never look in any of their eyes, OK? ”

I immediately averted my eyes and saw Shoto do the same thing. Aech caught us both staring at the ground.

“I didn’t tell you to avoid looking at them! ” Aech shouted. “Just avoid looking any of them in the eye for longer than a second or two, or they’ll go berserk, OK? ”

I nodded and glanced back up at them, still levitating above and around us, in what was now a slowly rotating circle.

The most imposing to me, by far, was Purple Rain Prince. He wore a pair of gleaming mirror shades, a shirt with a white ruffled collar, red pants, and a shiny purple trench coat with studs on the left shoulder. For some reason, he looked like the most pissed-off one of the bunch. He was also the first one to speak. He pointed down at us with one accusing finger.

“There they are! ” he shouted in a voice that reverberated throughout the arena. “Those are the heretics who broke into our house, trashed our bike, and stole our spaceship! And now they dare to defile our temple grounds! ”

In unison, the other six incarnations of Prince all gasped and then grimaced, while exchanging deeply offended looks with one another. Then, as if by telepathic agreement, the attack began.

Purple Rain Prince took the lead, and as he fell upon us, his glittering purple trench coat flapped out behind him like a pair of angel wings while he fired deafening blasts of sonic funk down at us from the head of his glowing H. S. Anderson Mad Cat guitar. They transformed into cracking balls of purple energy that exploded on impact. I took several direct hits from these to my avatar’s torso. Luckily my Chain of Gold did its job and kept me from sustaining damage.

Then, with a sonic boom, Purple Rain Prince was hovering high above us again. He raised his hands and shouted in that booming voice: “Majesty! Divinity! ”

Two doves rose up from behind him and hovered above his head. They both opened their beaks and fired shriek attacks down at us.

After Purple Rain Prince and his two attack doves finished their bombing run, Cloud Suit Prince descended. This incarnation wore a sky-blue suit covered in white clouds. And he apparently had the ability to turn his suit invisible and phase-shift, rendering him immune to our attacks.

Cloud Suit Prince seemed especially pissed-off at me, and focused all his vocal attacks on my avatar. It took me a few minutes to figure out why: it was his Cloud Guitar that I was holding, and he wanted it back.

Cloud Suit Prince was singing a song from 1984 called “I Would Die 4 U. ” But he altered the lyrics of its chorus slightly, so what I heard was, “You will. Die for. Me. Yeah! That is how it’s gonna be! ” Each rapid-fire chord he strummed on his Mad Cat fired another sonic blast down at me, like a gunfighter fanning the barrel of his six-shooter.

Aech referred to the next Prince in the attack conga line as Gett Off Prince. This one was dressed in a tight-fitting yellow lace suit with two circles cut out in the rear to expose his bare ass cheeks. Thankfully he didn’t fire any sonic attacks from them. Those came from his yellow guitar, which looked identical to mine, aside from the color.

I thought I was hallucinating when the next Prince descended on us. Aech referred to him as “Gemini. ” Shoto called him “Partyman. ” My image-recognition software’s best guess was “Batdance Prince. ” To me, he looked like the villain Two-Face, except that he was Batman on the left half and the green-haired Joker on his right half. He hurled joke bombs from one hand and batarangs from the other, then swooped back up and away, to dodge our counterattacks.

I’m not sure of the correct name for the next incarnation to attack, but I mentally nicknamed him Microphone Gun Prince. He wore an all-black suit, a black head wrap, and an oversize pair of black sunglasses. He also wielded a pair of gold microphone guns that he wore in black leather holsters on each hip. They looked like pistols, except that their barrels had old-school microphones at the end, which hurled a rapid-fire hail of sonic funk waves down at us. After he unleashed his salvo, he blew away the smoke rising from each microphone-gun barrel, then turned and holstered them both as he flew back up into the sky.

The next incarnation scared the living crap out of me. Third Eye Prince had a giant round Afro and a pair of sunglasses with three lenses. The third lens was centered above the bottom two, and it fired a devastating beam of sonic enlightenment from his concealed third eye, which incinerated everything in its path.

After Third Eye Prince finished his bombing run, Purple Rain Prince swooped down to make his second attack, even though he’d only completed his first run about six seconds earlier. Meanwhile, I hadn’t managed to get off even a single attack of my own—and my Chain of Gold wouldn’t hold out forever. It was a terrifying wake-up call, and made me realize how outmatched we really were.

The seventh and final incarnation, Mesh-Mask Prince, was the only one who didn’t swoop down to attack. Apparently unarmed, he continued to hover up above us, silent and motionless, watching the battle below unfold with an impassive expression on his face (at least, from what I could see of it through his mask).

I finally pulled it together and started to return fire with my Cloud Guitar, landing two direct hits on Cloud Suit Prince. This appeared to weaken him considerably, and he pulled out of the attack run rotation and remained hovering up above, alongside Mesh-Mask Prince.

Meanwhile, Aech had pulled up the henchman-activation incantation for the Original 7ven on her HUD. Facing Morris and his band, she read it aloud, prefacing each line of the incantation with a snap of her fingers:

Snap!

“Yo, Stella! If you think I’m afraid of you…”

Snap!

“Grace, if you so much as think I can’t do the do…”

Snap!

“Girl, if you dream I came to jerk around, you better wake up—”

Snap!

“—and release it! ”

As soon as Aech finished reciting the final two words of the incantation, Morris Day and the Time sprang into action, launching into a song from the Graffiti Bridge film soundtrack called “Release It. ”

Our front man, Morris Day, stepped forward, and a microphone appeared in his hand. He raised it to his lips, tilted his head up at his seven opponents, and spoke.

“What is your main problem? ”

The moment he said that, a pair of devil horns grew out of his head, and his eyes turned a dark shade of red. Spikes of red lightning shot from his horns, where they arced up to deflect the purple lightning attacks from above.

Then he unleashed his “Whawk! ” attack, which involved him making a deafening birdlike “Wh-ha-ha-hawk! ” laughing/shrieking sound, which unleashed a sonic area-of-effect attack that injured all seven incarnations at once.

But what made Morris an even more fearsome opponent was his right-hand man, Jerome “The Mirror Man” Benton, who carried around a large gold-framed vanity mirror that he used to create half a dozen mirror-image clones of Morris, each of whom began to unleash his own Whawk! attack.

The rest of the Original 7ven joined the fight too. Jimmy Jam and Monte Moir each wielded a modified red Roland AXIS-1 keytar that fired sonic funk blast waves out of its neck each time a chord was played on it. Jesse Johnson fired sonic thunderbolts from the pickups of his Fender Voodoo Stratocaster, while Terry Lewis did the same with his bass, and Jellybean Johnson stood behind them, firing red lightning skyward with his drumsticks, wielding them like two magic wands. Each of the band members could also fire a deadly blast of sonic energy directly from their own mouths, just by shouting the word “Yeow! ” over and over again.

In between his Whawk! attacks, Morris unleashed equally devastating verbal attacks. And for some reason, when the other members of his band repeated what he’d just said, it seemed to power up his verbal sonic attacks and cause them to do even more damage.

Morris would shout, “You can’t battle me, son! You still wet behind the ears! ”

And his boys would echo him: “Wet behind the ears! ”

Morris Day and the Time were magnificent to behold. But in the end, it wasn’t enough to save them, or us. Because the Princes had just summoned their henchmen too.

Purple Rain Prince summoned his band, the Revolution. They all wore regal outfits with ruffled collars, just like him.

Microphone Gun Prince summoned the New Power Generation. There were a bunch of them, and they were all armed to the teeth, with every kind of instrument.

And then Third Eye Prince summoned his band 3RDEYEGIRL (which, my HUD informed me, was spelled in ALL CAPS).

All three bands appeared on the ground, encircling us in the arena. They began to attack us from the surface, while six of the Princes continued to attack us from the air.

That was when Aech shouted something to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis about “activating their producing powers. ” They smiled and nodded, and then snapped their fingers in unison—instantly summoning two dozen uniformed henchmen of their own:

Janet Jackson and the Rhythm Nation.

When they came marching into the arena, Aech looked like she might pass out.

“Holy shit! ” she said. “I can’t believe that worked! ”

And then it became an all-out sonic war.

I don’t know exactly what happened next, or how it all went down.

But when the dust settled, all seven members of the Time had been killed, including Morris Day and all of his mirror images. (Purple Rain Prince somehow used his mirror shades to shatter Jerome’s mirror, so he was no longer able to use it to make Morris clones—and that was the beginning of the end, I think. )

But before they died, the Original 7ven managed to take out all three female members of 3RDEYEGIRL, all of the New Power Generation, and every member of the Revolution, except for Wendy and Lisa, whom I managed to take out with blasts from my Cloud Guitar.

Four incarnations of Prince had gone down, but three had managed to survive the onslaught: Microphone Gun, Third Eye, and Mesh-Mask. But all three of them looked badly injured—and extremely angry about it.

I got off another lucky shot from the Cloud Guitar and managed to nail Third Eye Prince directly in his third eye. Apparently that was his weak spot, because he vanished in a shower of glittering purple dust. The last two incarnations gasped, and so did Aech.

I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe we had a shot at winning this thing after all.

Then the Cloud Guitar—which had been rapidly overheating in my hands while I was mentally patting myself on the back—finally exploded, causing me to take several hundred more points of damage. My health bar began to flash bright red. My avatar was near death. By some cruel twist of fate, I happened to have exactly seven hit points remaining.

But it wasn’t over yet. There were three of us, and only two Princes.

“Yes! ” Shoto cried. “Now we’ve got them outnumbered! Five down and two to go! ”

And that was when we lost him. Shoto let out a long hysterical laugh—a clear sign that he was starting to suffer the effects of SOS. Then he signed his avatar’s own death warrant.

“One-two princes kneel before you, ” he sang, while failing to suppress his synaptic-overload-induced laughter. “Princes! Princes who adore you! ”

A horrified look crossed Aech’s face, and she threw her head back to study the sky. A split second later, a purple lightning bolt descended from it and struck Shoto, killing him instantly.

Aech and I watched in horror as Shoto’s avatar slowly faded out of existence, leaving all of his items in a pile on the ground. Acting on survival instinct, I ran over to scoop them up and add them to my inventory. Aech ran over to stand shoulder to shoulder with me.

At some point during the melee, Mesh-Mask Prince had descended to the ground behind us. He was facing us, standing with his back to the steps that led up to the Temple of Seven. He took a menacing step toward us, and as he did, the black stone floor of the arena beneath his feet turned to gold, and so did the floor directly ahead of him, creating a straight gold pathway up the center of the arena and out of its entrance. Where the gold path intersected with the desert highway outside, it began to transmute the asphalt to gold too.

I glanced over at Aech and saw that she was staring intently down at the transmuted gold beneath our feet in wonder, with a thoughtful look on her face. Then she looked back over at Mesh-Mask Prince. A woman in a glittering gold dress had appeared beside him. She was dancing and spinning in circles, with a large sword balanced on top of her head. My HUD informed me that this woman was Prince’s first wife, Mayte Garcia.

Floating in the air between Mesh-Mask Prince and Mayte was a brilliant gold light, like a tiny star. It was too bright to look at directly without being momentarily blinded, and I averted my eyes. But Aech stared intently at it, ignoring everything else.

“This is just like the music video for ‘Seven’! ” she shouted.

“Is that helpful? ” I shouted back. I glanced up and saw that Microphone Gun Prince seemed transfixed by the golden light too. His attacks forgotten, he just hovered above us, staring, and the arena fell silent for the first time since we’d stepped into it.

A second later, I heard a woman begin to sing, in a clear, beautiful voice. The voice went on singing for several more seconds before I realized that it was Aech. She was singing a cappella. The lyrics were to a song I had never heard before.

All seven and we’ll watch them fall

They stand in the way of love

And we will smoke them all…

One day all seven will die

As she sang, the two incarnations of Prince joined in. Somehow, their collective voices instantly resurrected the other five Princes, and they all joined too.

When the song was over, the seven incarnations of Prince all floated down and joined hands in front of Aech. She looked surprised. And elated.

Then the Seven Princes morphed and merged, coalescing into one single incarnation of Prince—the one wearing the black mesh mask. A split second later, he transformed into a glowing Love Symbol, which then melted and morphed into the Fifth Shard—a purple crystal spinning in the air.

I felt no sense of victory, because I had no idea what had just happened. All I felt were waves of exhaustion and amazement as I walked over and wrapped my right hand around the shard, bracing myself to relive another piece of Kira Underwood’s life….

I was Kira once again, and a now-middle-aged Ogden Morrow was standing next to me, holding my hand. We were in some sort of small theater or rock club, standing in front of a small, dark, empty stage, which was filled with a cloud of white smoke or fog, possibly created by a smoke machine or dry-ice condenser offstage. Hanging over this mist-covered stage was a small automated lighting rig, with a banner suspended from it that said HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY, KIRA!

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see James Halliday, dressed in an ill-fitting tuxedo, sitting alone in a corner, staring back at me forlornly. I could also hear what sounded like a large crowd of excited, whispering people behind me, but they were just beyond my peripheral vision, and Kira didn’t turn her head to look back at them.

A split-second after I clocked my surroundings, I felt Og squeeze my hand, and a dozen ultra-bright purple spotlights switched on, all converging on a lone figure standing on the stage directly in front of us. It was Prince, dressed in a glittering sequined purple suit. When she saw him, I felt Kira’s heart begin to beat so rapidly I worried she might pass out. I could feel myself swaying ever so slightly, and felt unsteady on my feet, because before I knew what was happening, the Purple One himself was approaching me. Then he was kneeling down on the stage in front of me, just a few feet away.

He raised a golden microphone and sang “Happy Birthday, Kira” to me, or rather—her.

And then I was back on the Afterworld, in the center of the courtyard arena in front of the Temple of the Seven, holding the Fifth Shard in my outstretched hand. I resisted the urge to immediately check it for an inscription. Shoto was more important. I pulled up my HUD and called Faisal, adding Aech to the call just before Faisal’s face appeared in front of us. We both began to bark questions at him, asking about Shoto’s condition. Once Faisal got us to quiet down, he told us that Shoto appeared to be fine, at least as far as they could tell.

“It’s the same as the rest, ” Faisal explained. “All vital signs are normal, and he’s still logged in to his OASIS account. But we can’t locate his avatar anywhere in the simulation. ”

Faisal shook his head and shrugged. “He appears to be stuck in limbo, just like all the other ONI hostages whose avatars have died. ”

“What will happen when he hits his ONI usage limit? ” I asked. “Will he still start to suffer the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome? ”

Faisal nodded. “Yes. Our engineers think so, anyway. It seems likely that Anorak would have written his infirmware to ensure that all of his ONI hostages remain his captives, even after their avatars die. ”

“But why doesn’t he just let their avatars respawn? ” Aech asked. “They would still be his hostages. ”

“We’re not sure, ” Faisal said. “Perhaps he’s doing it to scare all of us? To keep all of his hostages in line, by making avatar death permanent? If so, it’s working. At least on me. ”

Faisal told us that Shoto’s pregnant wife, Kiki, and the rest of his extended family were still standing vigil beside his OIV at his home in Hokkaido. They could see his sleeping body on his immersion vault’s internal cameras, which were linked to a video monitor mounted on the wall above it. There was nothing GSS’s engineers could do for him. They weren’t even trying to cut him out of his OIV, because they knew they couldn’t get him out in time. And even if they could, it wouldn’t matter. As long as Shoto remained logged in to the OASIS, his ONI headset would stay locked into place around his head. And until we managed to free Shoto’s mind from the OASIS, his comatose body would continue to be locked inside his OIV, just a few feet away from his family, but totally out of reach.

When Faisal finished answering our questions about Shoto, he couldn’t help himself. In a panicked voice, he began to ask us how close we were to finding the Sixth Shard. I hung up on him without answering. Then I closed my HUD and looked down at the Fifth Shard, which I was still clutching in my right hand. I turned it over until I found an inscription on one of its facets. I held the shard out so that Aech could read it too.

Win her hand through a feat of dark renown

The last two shards are set in Morgoth’s Crown

When I saw the last two words of the inscription, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I tried to think of a worse place for the last two shards to be hidden. There wasn’t one. Halliday had put them in the deepest, darkest, and deadliest dungeon fortress in the entire OASIS, in the possession of one of the most ridiculously overpowered—and evil—NPCs ever created. An NPC who was immortal, nigh invulnerable, and capable of killing most ninety-ninth-level avatars with his breath.

For all intents and purposes, the last two shards were located in the depths of hell, set into the crown of Satan himself.

I started to laugh.

It was just a rapid-fire giggle at first. But then I couldn’t stop, and it quickly grew into the loud, uncontrolled laughter of a sane soul pushed to the brink of madness by cruel chance, just before fate drop-kicked them over the edge of a cliff.

I checked my ONI usage countdown and I still had over an hour remaining, so I couldn’t be experiencing the onset of SOS. Not yet. Which meant I was just starting to lose it.

Aech stared at me with an uncertain look on her face until I managed to get my laughter under control.

“OK, Chuckles, ” she said. “Now are you gonna tell me what’s so funny? I take it you know where we need to go next? ”

I took a deep breath. Then I wiped away the tears at the corners of my eyes and nodded.

“Yeah, ” I said. “Unfortunately, I do, Aech. ”

“Well? ” Aech said. “Don’t make me look it up. Who the hell is Morgoth? ”

I studied her face. I could see that she wasn’t joking. She really didn’t know. And this realization nearly set me off again. But I managed to keep a lid on it.

“Morgoth Bauglir, ” I said. “The Dark Lord formerly known as Melkor? ”

Aech’s eyes lit up.

“Melkor? ” she repeated. “Vin Diesel’s avatar? Named after his old D& D character? ”

“Vin borrowed that name from the Silmarillion, ” I replied. “Melkor, who later became known as Morgoth, was the most powerful—and evil—being ever to roam the face of Arda. Also known as Middle-earth…”

When she heard the words “Middle-earth, ” Aech inhaled sharply.

“Are you telling me that I have to spend the last hour of my life surrounded by a bunch of fucking Hobbits, Z? ”

I shook my head.

“All the Hobbit NPCs live on Arda III. ” I pointed to the name etched into the Fifth Shard. “Morgoth only resided on Arda during the First Age of Middle-earth. Which means we need to teleport to Arda I, and that planet is a completely Hobbit-free zone. ”

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