Byzantium's residential area.
"Do not address me directly, scum."
"Yes, my queen!"
The faux-stone fence around Team Friendship Forever's house was short enough to give Henry vision of the street from their courtyard. To his total unsurprise, Loki showed up with a crowd in his wake, along with Byzantine guides, including Village Head Walker. Much of the crowd consisted of Loki's beta-orbiters, who were carrying furniture - some faces were recognisable as people who'd attempted to assassinate him.
In Byzantium's guild chat, a message announced that the spy and several of his followers had decided to sign up despite last night's humiliating pummelling.
Handsome Dan's handsome mouth popped open. "Big Bro, it's that Transvestite Sis!"
When Loki spotted them at the grill, he feigned surprise, covering his mouth with his glossy-nailed fingers. "What's this? A barbeque?" The spy strutted over, leaned across the fence to inspect the steaks, before spontaneously throwing his head back to cackle. "Hah! The kitchen fits you!"
Up close, Loki dropped his facade for a micro-second, the hostility in his pupils becoming colder, more masculine.
By what reason had he justified his reappearance? One benefit of choosing a beautiful, passionate woman for his persona was that no one expected him to be bound by the conventions of rationality and internal consistency. All she needed was her fury.
Your move, Tyrant.
Henry, one eye shut as it browsed his Mental Library, drew a line in a decision tree prepared after dissecting Loki's scheme that read, 'Annoying Neighbours'. He then plated a steak and floated it over the fence to the spy.
"Welcome to the neighbourhood!"
His sarcasm triggered Loki's white knights.
"You dare to serve our queen poison!"
"What are you plotting with that eye?! Open it up!"
"Do not let that filth pass between your sweet lips! I will fry you a thousand juicier steaks!"
Henry's friends, aware of Loki's cross-dressing, cringed in unison. These wretched beta-orbiters...how tiny their hearts would shrivel when they discovered their affection had been poured onto a dude.
"You think you're clever." Loki confidently picked up the steak to take a bite, pausing abruptly (Damn, that's delicious...). "I will not be mesmerised by the mind games of any male!" He slammed the rest on the ground.
The impact was kind of anticlimactic because the plate, fired from a Tier-2 clay, bounced off the cobblestones without being damaged. Also, the 'cobblestone' was made out of wood so, rather than a crash, it produced a hollow thud.
Loki marched over to a house across the street from Henry and co's and placed his hands bossily on his hips. "Give me this one!"
"My queen," countered a follower, "we cannot stay so near this scumbag! What if we catch his fleas?"
"We?" Loki replied venomously. "You will find another residence. I am not staying with any of you perverted low-lives."
"But, my queen, it is—agh!"
The beta-orbiter was silenced as Loki, leaping into the air, drove his man-hating spear through their clavicle. A moment before the follower disintegrated into soul lights, their mouth stretched in ecstasy.
Citizen Higgs, the Long-Term Villager who'd built the residential area, and who'd been accompanying Loki, coughed into a fist. "That one's currently occupied. We've got a larger estate—"
"Nah, it's fine, mate," interrupted another Byzantine in the crowd. "It's all yours, Artemis! Welcome to Byzantium!"
Their squadmates arrived soon after to begin packing up the knick-knacks accumulated over their adventures in Suchi.
As Henry returned to barbequing, Loki's white knights, helping their 'goddess' move in, continued to throw murderous glares at him.
From their midst, Walker detached himself and came over to apologise.
"You'll have to forgive me. My greed is too colossal to surrender such a talent. There'll be guards stationed around the clock just in case, but her... Artemis's fans have agreed to maintain the peace within the confines of our walls. Outside, however..."
"Forget about it." Henry tapped his chest, a thud sounding from a Spelltome strapped under his shirt. "They'll have to bring a thousand times their number to kill me."
More, in fact.
"It's forgotten!" The man paused, giving Henry a look measuring up some part of his inner substance. "You know, with the prestige of Flaming Sun, you could guillotine the issue with a sentence. If anything, they'd probably try to get in your good graces."
Walker had been contacted by his higher-ups about Henry's guild membership and ordered to monitor him.
"That's not my style," Henry answered coolly. (Actually, he would have done this, but his bet contract with Alex forbade him informing people in order to manipulate them; it was covered under abuses of guild resources. He'd thought it ingenious to show his Spelltomes as a workaround, but the noobs in this trash zone lacked the brain cells to make the link.) "Besides, murder, bootlicking, both poisons taste foul to me." He served Rose an overcooked steak.
"I can respect that." Walker nodded in understanding. "Well, from me at least, you have a solemn vow to remain unchanged. My slavemaster's whip won't sting one bit less."
Contradicting the man's words, his tone throughout this brief interaction had lacked a paternalistic warmth present during their previous meetings. His gaze, also, was more focused, his blinks less frequent, as one's are when staring at an adversary.
Henry could concoct any number of explanations for this ill-feeling. His guild's existence contradicted the egalitarian, communistic ideology extolled—but not practised—by The Empire. Many around the globe hated them for suppressing their growth and violence. And then some merely despised them for being at the top - the natural enmity any power climber feels towards those further up the ladder, whose arses continually stare down at them.
It was a shame. This Walker fellow was one of the rare souls Henry'd encountered who appreciated fine literature in 2050, a member of the same dying breed. Whatever bond might've been possible through that connection, however, had now been severed by the irreconcilable divide between enemies.
"I'd expect nothing more," he replied.
"I'm serious! Later tonight, we'll be bleeding every drop of Universal Productivity out of you." When Henry didn't understand, Walker laughed. "I should report this to the bosses! There are plots that can pass unnoticed even by your lot – hope exists for us yet. My friend, the plan was rewritten in the eleventh hour. We're being shipped off to the gulags for an exhausting session of hard community service!"
Initially, for the community event scheduled after tonight's team practice, they were going to participate in a last-Village-standing tournament, where they and thousands of others packed themselves into an abandoned mine complex and fought to the death. Henry supposed The Empire must have enacted this change as a counter-measure to the developments at the WBAE. Clean up their image, etc.
Oh well, it wasn't as though his friends would have grown much fighting alongside the rest of the Byzantines under Justinian's roleplayed commands.
The Crusader...
Henry's face suddenly contorted in revulsion.
Walker frowned darkly.
"You're mistaken," Henry countered. "Has the event already begun?"
The Oceanic playerbase were usually the first participants in The Slum's community events due to their timezone being the furthest ahead. Byzantium, although part of this region, was in the County of Western and Central Australia, putting it several hours behind their eastern counterparts.
And if the event had already begun, then
-Justinian: Citizens of Byzantium, arise and assemble! Too long, the fair folk have been malformed by His oppressive rule! Today, we relieve them of His burdens and straighten their crooked spines!
Then, that.
Walker pretended he had a watch to check. "Looks like it's dungeon'o'clock. Chin up, my boy! Reserve your UP for our craft team! It'll be a tremendous help!"
As the man sprinted off along with Citizen Higgs to gather their teams and leave before Justinian arrived to sidetrack them from their progress, Henry sighed.
"What was all that about, Big Bro?"
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"It means another interruption, Dan, another delay dealt to us by this inane, crime-riddled, poverty-stricken, roleplayer-having zone."
But wait, Loki'd signed up a bunch of fans with him, and his persona was devoted to PVP. Perhaps Henry should encourage a democratic vote.
However, across the street, the spy had been watching him from a second-story window. Having seen his abhorrence to Justinian's announcement, Loki flung open the window and glared. "There's only one thing sweeter than stabbing a man in the heart: stabbing him in the soul! Arise and assemble, my loyal hunters!"
His beta-orbiters couldn't read the subtext, but they expressed their immediate support.
Henry threw down his tongs, the barbeque that was supposed to motivate his friends no longer serving a purpose.
These obnoxious personas, always messing with his—
But wait, that unbeatable card remained. Democracy.
As he raised his wrist to summon a pile of gold, however, a chubby hand pressed his arm back down.
"What did we talk about this morning, Henry? Team Friendship Forever respects the democratic process. For the development of a healthy civic culture..."
-Zhangmei33: Cripple-gege, grant me the honour of killing him.
Henry gave Rose's offer a more serious consideration than earlier.
By all rights, he would be justified in administering a quick and painful death to all these loud-mouthed cretins. And in the past, this may have been his breaking point, because although he could tolerate many impositions, from insults to murder, there was one value he'd held sacrosanct: don't waste his time. However, the Henry of today was not the Henry of yesterday. He'd turned over new, more patient leaf after the years of snowy torture.
"Rose, please," he calmly folded his hands behind his back, "don't be so immature. There are dozens of solutions available before the dagger."
Headquarters for The 'Kingdom' of South-East Asia and Oceania, a scale replica of Borobudur, a terraced pyramid temple with hundreds of statues and bell-shaped stupa.
At the base of this extravagant monstrosity, the noobs had amassed to compete in today's impromptu community-service event. A queue of Ibanmothe seeking assistance stretched beyond the grounds out into The Slum streets. Their ranks included grandmothers searching for stew recipes, Textileworkers whose cloth shipments had been late, disabled youths with mysterious diseases, and masked figures with clandestine designs. Answering their calls was a constant flux of players, squads returning to proclaim their victories and racing off to obtain the next.
The anarchy was being contained by The Kingdom's most even-keeled Peopleworkers, who directed the crowds like shepherds overseeing their flock, their dogs their guard platoons, their crooks the ability to deduct and award Slum Points.
Into the fray, the Byzantines marched forward, ready to assist the noble citizens. Their group was led by two towering figures, the tragic Crusader adorned in golden armour and the transvestite goddess orbited by thirsty virgins.
The crowd stirred around them. In addition to proclamations of love, they showered Artemis with questions. Why was she with them after yesterday's pathetic defeat? How could she stomach the disaster of Byzantium? Would they embarrass her again?
Loki simply smiled back and waved.
"Justinian, mate, you're early!" called out a Landworker carting back a shipment of ore.
The Crusader stabbed his sword through the first moon. "We guardians of the light must always be prepared to fight, for Evil casts its shadow without regard for the hour."
And taking up the Byzantine rear, Henry had one eye on his Mental Library, the other hunting for assassins. Deep in the mass of people, he spotted the still shirtless bodies of Dan's meathead teammates, who'd joined a Kiwi Village. He didn't call out or mention this to anyone since dealing with them would have been a nuisance.
As he passed the Ibanmothe queue, his ears, also scanning for threat, picked up their many-tongued whispers.
Although none of them would dare state this out loud, the reason for their appearance here in such large numbers was related to recent initiatives at the West Bank Autonomous Exclave.
Many of the Ibanmothe had in the past dumped their gold into 'Slum Points'. This act both demonstrated their loyalty to The Empire and gave them access to The Empire's services, the Slum Points being a pseudo-currency used in lieu of real money.
Buying Slum Points had always been a rip-off for the Ibanmothe, but the NPCs hadn't had an alternative because The Empire monopolised many economic sectors and discouraged going elsewhere through shame and murder. Now, though, competing services purchasable with gold would be offered by the WBAE under the protection of The Church.
Thus, rumours had begun to spread of an imminent collapse of in the inflated Slum Point value. For those NPCs who'd invested in The Empire, their fortunes were about to dwindle. To alleviate their concerns, The Empire had set up this 'community service' event, enlisting hundreds of thousands of Villagers in a day of labour and giving the concerned Ibanmothe a channel for dumping their Slum Points upon the players, who would be too moronic to care.
Henry was surprised. He'd predicted that The Empire would have inflated the Slum Point gradually, the current tactic having a high risk of crashing the currency into oblivion. On further reflection, though, their decision seemed to be superior. An immediate crash could reduce the gnawing dread of a drawn-out decline. Moreover, the close timing of the incident to the opening of the WBAE would enable them to blame it on underhanded dealings by the WBAE's administration.
Alas, him making a few blunders couldn't be helped - after all, he'd spent a mere half-an-hour plotting The Empire's downfall during his impatient teens. Nevertheless, the ultimate result could not be changed. Against certain foes, there can be no victory, only various shades of defeat.
He expected Ramiro to fight to the bloody end.
They joined a short line for a station where The Kingdom's Peopleworkers were dolling out jobs, the class being able to create custom quests. These Peopleworkers were linked up to an Empire-wide database, to which new jobs were constantly being added by others interviewing the NPCs. Henry was the sole member of Byzantium's arena team with the sub-class, but he couldn't access the database due to him being registered with The Empire as a guest.
When they reached the head of the line, Justinian boldly strode up and took a chair before one of the Peopleworkers. "Noble wizard, what nightmares disturb these wary lands? Lay upon me your darkest tidings."
Henry went up separately to another. "Yo, can I browse the database myself? It'll be quicker."
"Go ahead, mate." The Peopleworker placed their hands palms-up on the table, motes of balance-scale-shaped energy streaming down their arms to their fingertips.
As Henry intertwined his fingers with theirs, his vision filled with an interface table listing thousands of quests. The quests ranged from harvesting crops to collecting resources from dungeons. Along with general descriptors for each task were noted the Slum Point bounties, map coordinates for objectives, class requirements, whether anyone was attempting the quest, and other miscellaneous information.
Indeed, thought Henry, his patience had paid off; here were the dozens of solutions.
The Peopleworker, monitoring the screens he was browsing, was shocked when he began rapidly registering his team for multiple quests. "Are you—"
"Relax," Henry pressed down one of his palms to emphasise the platinum coins he'd slipped into theirs. "I've got a plan."
The plan: A gauntlet of dozens of quests spread around The Slums, through the completion of which the advanced movement tactics would be drilled into his lazy friends' bones.
They would be blind to their own development. In fact, he would manipulate them to train even harder than before. Hitherto, he'd been hamstrung by Cathy's constant nagging about keeping things' fun' – that ephemeral, useless drive. But what compared 'fun' to the troubles of the common people? A few litres of sweat was a trivial donation.
Nothing, not The Empire, not someone roleplaying a simpleton, not democracy, could interfere with their improvement!
"Justinian," Henry called out, "We wouldn't be able to compete on the Village leaderboard guided by your handicapped roleplaying commands. Why don't we split up into squads? You'll have an easier time practising, and I won't have to suffer under your imbecility."
The Crusader paused. The person behind the character was fully on-board since having to handle fewer teammates would indeed make his life simpler. However, he had to formulate an in-character excuse for accepting the arrangement.
"'Artemis'?" Henry addressed the spy. "You versus me? For old time's sake?"
Loki produced a hair-tie and pulled up his luscious, seaweed-thick locks, the exposure of the delicate nape of his neck causing his followers to swoon. "You're on." Regardless of what The Tyrant was plotting, an opportunity to clash wits against him was irresistible.
Henry turned back to the struggling Crusader. "Cover more ground by operating independently."
Justinian leapt from his chair, his golden fist clenched with determination. "Indeed, by splitting apart, we can purge His insidious influence wherever it hides!"
With everyone else on board—the Byzantines wanting to avoid yet another public loss, Loki's beta-orbiters to crush Henry, and his friends because it sounded more 'fun'—the vote was unanimous.
Untampered democracy!
"If I win," said Loki, "You will personally instruct me in Small-Island Shooting. Name your prize."
"The prize?" Henry replied.
The prize was the long-lasting satisfaction of personal growth due to hard work for his lazy pals and the boredom-alleviating hilarity for himself of them inching closer to winning the 6v6 despite them having no innate talent. Nothing more would he stake on this 'competition'. He had zero intention of winning - the paths he'd mapped out through The Slums were not designed to maximise quest completion but exercise.
Using a Nomad Sabre technique, he invoked an extreme disgust, his face grimacing as if Loki had recommended they catapult twenty-six clan babies into a pit of rusty knives during a moon alignment unfavourable to infant sacrifices.
Loki was speechless. What the hell is this expression?
"Sir Justinian!" Henry cried in indignation, "are you hearing this cow's greedy moos?! What more reward need we than the glory of assisting the fair folk and the thrill of fair competition?!"
He ducked a spear thrust from one of Loki's fans.
The gory display halted any further attack, allowing him to safely drop back to his human form.
"Sorry," he apologised to the Peopleworker who'd helped him and tossed them some more platinum for cleaning fees.
"Coward!" Loki screeched. "Put that book away and fight me fairly!"
"Nah."
While Loki/Artemis threw a tantrum at Henry, the teen roleplaying Justinian was groaning internally. What a disaster, he thought. Although he didn't want to offend Artemis, his character, with its stubborn vows, couldn't disagree with Henry. Just like during their earlier negotiations, he'd been roleplayed into a corner, his own roleplay used against him, a supreme outroleplaying. When had this guy mastered these arts? Weren't they the same age?
Eventually, the Crusader settled upon a compromise. "Sir Henry, Lady Artemis, please, you are both mistaken. Unlike He, whose heart thumps for gold's glimmer, for the people's praise, we are driven by only our soul's eternal yearnings to enact good and combat evil. Enough of this conflict. Byzantium, let us pray for the courage to bear the forthcoming trials!" He rotated his sword and pressed the hilt to his chest reverentially. "Be strong and brave, fear not..."
Henry ordered his team to head out, the first quest he'd chosen being to help a grandpa transport groceries to his shack up an inconveniently-steep hill.
As they jogged away, he gripped his Spelltome tight and returned to his Mental Library. There, he continued brainstorming for his global gold-digger recruitment tournament. Sometimes, he was astounded by his Fleshbag self. Even at age 17, he'd been an absolute genius.
Behind Henry, watching him leave—not a hint of this ever having been detected by him because, after decades of total solitude, his social IQ had not actually risen a single point—Rose, her gaze flicking back and forth, from his wide back diving fearlessly into the crowd, to the blood on the table he'd ruthlessly spilt, blushed.
So cool! Cripple-gege had returned and a billion-times more invincible than ever, taking on the world alone, insulting people in front of their fans, slaughtering the plebs without a second's hesitation!
-Zhangmei33: Cripple-gege, I can't be in that crazy roleplayer's squad again. Can I join you guys?
Healing that crazy fuck had been so frustrating during yesterday's team practice that she'd almost deleted her character again and abandoned this mission to earn Cripple-gege's love.
She blushed even redder.
-Henry Flower: Hmm...that could allow for more intensive training. Fine. If you want, you can substitute heal in my place.
Straightening out her expression, she chased after him.
-Zhangmei33: Then, what will you do, Cripple-gege?
-Henry Flower: The same thing I do every day, Rose. Climb.