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A Certified Classic, December 10, 2020To start things off, if you've never read any other story by Endmaster, this is a good one to start with. Several of his other stories have references to/are interconnected with this story.
Shared universe aside, the story on it's own is a masterclass in dark fantasy. Several endings where you just perish in different ways due to a simple mistake, or others where the choices you make result in a downer, grim ending possibly worse than death. I mean, the "True" ending results in (Spoiler - click to show)The Necromancer being the last living thing on the planet, having killed (directly or indirectly) everything else, and being invited to a new world to be an all-powerful being of death. That's pretty dark. And it's written perfectly.
The story is written in such a way that really makes you sympathize with The Necromancer. By name, the villain of the story. The writing was so convincing that, by the end of the story, in the before mentioned "True" ending, I did not feel that the Necromancer did anything wrong. He clearly did, because he (Spoiler - click to show)pretty much eradicated all life in the world, but the writing made it feel like a natural course of action with rational decision-making. It just made sense, in the moment.
To end things, and as it should be with choice-based games, this story deserves multiple playthroughs. It is actually worth going through and seeing every ending, for how well they're all written, and just how varied each one is. Really just get the full 75k word experience. A great story, and a perfect introduction to some of Endmaster's other stories.
The only bad thing I can say about this story is that I cannot read it for the first time again.