Headquarters for the Suchi branch of Channel 5 News. The tent of Oliver Spears, 2049’s Gaming Journalist of The Year Award Winner.
Strewn around the office was the evidence of an all-night investigation into The Empire’s nefarious dealings with The Society and The Instructors Union.
A wooden board spanning one side of the tent was plastered with a hundred pictures and scribbled paragraphs. Red-string connected all of these to the portrait of one man, a false saviour with a smouldering cigarillo between his teeth.
On the floor, Oliver lay floating amongst a sea of research notes, the Memory Spheres around him with their incriminating scenes resembling priceless pearls. On his face, rocking on the currents of his breath, was a random report.
This one detailed the gruesome demise of Mother Kedvessen. The not-so-secret leader of the Delivery Roaches, she’d developed the enterprise to feed and clothe The Slum’s orphans. One day, while distributing soup in the markets, she was apprehended by a group of thugs, put on display for the crowd, and disembowelled.
Why? The explanations were manifold, but the one Oliver’d snagged onto was a criticism she’d laid two weeks earlier against the spendthrift habits of Queen Atusa, leader of The Kingdom of Greater Iran and Ramiro’s secret lover.
A careful rereading of past incidents exposed a dozen similar cases with The Empire at their heart.
Epit Magas, an Ibanmothe construction magnate whose guild accounted for 20% of post-Cleansing rebuilds. One day out of the blue, he left The Slums without a word, later being spotted naked and raving forty-miles north amongst a pack of Plains Hyena. His assets were gobbled up by AKEL, a building firm indirectly-owned by King Gustaf of United Europe, a member of the cabal that Ramiro had raised with him.
The Priest From Wanaagsan, a messiah with an exploding following of devotees, adored for his humble speech and his willingness to heal The Slum’s sick without a fee. He’d been hunted down over a two-day wild goose chase after the preserved hands of five children were dug up from under his shack, along with effigies to Xun, Demon of Gluttony. Following an interrogation by King Ramiro himself that deemed him guilty, the priest begged again and again to be taken before the Ibanpita, screaming that he'd been set up, right until the moment the executioner’s flames released his soul...
The common thread was clear: Ramiro, the beloved Saviour of The Slums, had been eliminating his critics and competitors in order to expand his dominion.
In of itself, this wouldn’t have been enough to stir Oliver’s heart beyond what was needed to cobble up a stock-standard hit piece, such schemes being the norm in the corrupt world of digital politics. However, he’d continued diving into the issue because his journalistic senses had touched upon a juicy secondary angle.
There was a darkness in Ramiro’s actions. Once brought to the light, the contrast with his public image as a saviour would raise the story from the forgettable mundane to international sensation.
Struggling to grasp what that darkness was exactly, Oliver had entered a sort of meditation. Lying amongst the papers of his investigation, he was dipping his mind into the hypnagogic oceans that separated the lands of sleep and waking. Here, the ideas swam free in the semi-conscious dark, rebelliant and strangeloose, knocking their noses together into the haphazard making of the new.
Disembowelled before her orphans...and the preserved hands of five children...naked and raving... a framed messiah chased down like a rat with the Villager’s armed with weapons like brooms...and the preserved hands of five children...The Society, pacifists of the plants, slain unwittingly...disembowelled before her orphans...and the preserved—
“Ah!”
The report slid down his face, revealing a set of eyes sparkling with the electricity of epiphany.
“King Ramiro Spotted Butchering Children For Fun. No, The Sadist of The Slums.”
The exposé’s title could be finalised later.
‘Blake,’ he messaged his supervisor, ‘I’m going undercover; have an intern reserve my username.’
-Nigel Blake (London, England): You’re supposed to be leading the Suchi team...
‘The higher-ups don’t care what I do with this branch.’
-Nigel Blake: One more story on him and we’re—
‘Ease up. The hound still feels the sting of its neutering. While the wound heals, I’ve decided to chase a different rabbit. Reserve it!’
WARNING: You have chosen to delete your character. Please hold while a human staff member is contacted to confirm your choice.
The Arena of the Duchy of Australasia.
A full game day’s cycle had passed, from sunrise to sunrise, and four-fifths of the Villagers using the facility had logged off or departed.
Amongst the stubborn few who fought on was one team fuelled by the power of everlasting love.
Presently, Team Friendship Forever were sparring a group of feudal-era Japan roleplayers on a Mesoamerican-themed battleground.
The score: 2 combatants left for them, 4 for the enemy.
Abigail was sprinting across one of the battleground’s many rope bridges that connected several small islands on a lake of acid. Behind her, a Fighter in lamellar samurai armour was picking up the naginata lost from his grip after she’d sliced off his fingers. Once he'd retrieved it, he would continue his pursuit of her.
-Henry Flower: Cut’s off me. I’ll ambush base in 12.
The island ahead of Abigail bore a one-story high statue of a feathered serpent. As she was diving behind it, she felt a sharp sensation in her lower back.
“Damn it!” she swore.
As the self-healing effect ejected an arrow stained with the tissue of her right kidney, her health dropped to 38%.
Peeking back through the gaps in the Serpent statue’s coils, she saw the Beast Tamer who’d shot her standing on top of a pyramid-shaped temple, his Red Fox companion and a Shaman by his side.
The Beast Tamer, feeling unconfident in landing a second arrow through the gaps, relaxed his bowstring.
Abigail utilised the pause to hand gesture a written character from The Poem of The Night, from which Cutthroats memorised their spells. Ropes of shadow streamed out of the air to be absorbed by her palm, forming the beginnings of
Although the Fighter chasing her would be able to get within the spell’s visibility range before she finished, she'd still be invisible to his teammates. If she could juke him around the statue, she could sprint down either the bridge she’d come along or a second bridge leading in the opposite direction.
The Fighter stopped at the end of the bridge.
"Silly, Daisy-chan," he taunted in a gruff samurai tone, “you are already...”
“...dead,” completed a katana-wielding Cutthroat, breaking out of their invisibility on the second bridge.
“Shit!” she swore.
This was so unfair!
Sure, it was an amateur mistake to be trapped after losing track of the Cutthroat’s whereabouts, but it wasn’t her fault! Really!
Her group had been sparring continuously against an endless merry-go-round of freak teams, Henry never giving them longer than a few minutes rest. Her dumb friends seemed to enjoy the frantic pace, but Abigail, who had to carry them on her back, had long surpassed her mental limit after 9 hours of the gruelling regime.
Anyone else would be screwing up, too!
-Henry Flower: Concentrate.
She reviewed her options.
That was it!
-Henry Flower: Save it. I’m ambushing in 5.3, use the distraction to slip past.
-Battered Daisy: Roger.
Instantly ditching her plan, she cancelled her spellcast, summoned a spear, and charged out from her cover.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The Fighter reacted to her switching to the offence by extending his grip for a safe, long-distance strike.
On top of the temple, the Beast Tamer was lining up an arrow to assist his teammate when two loud noises from his rear made him jump.
“Yelp!” cried the Red Fox as it went flying.
“Nani?!” cried the Shaman as a Chameleon Monkey, who’d booted the fox, lifted her above its head.
Transforming into a gorilla, it ran over to the edge of the temple, where it planned to javelin her into the lake.
“My kimono!” she screamed. “Not the acid! I concede!”
2-3.
Gorilla Henry, discarding the Shaman, cancelled
-Danontherightwing: Nice one, Big Bro!
Abigail, who could have used this opportunity to bypass the distracted Fighter, thought of a better plan. Dropping her spear, she unsheathed her dagger and performed three hand gestures to activate
'Seems ya're in a sketchy spot, love. ‘Av a draw of me zoot!'
With the Cutthroat progenitor God's voice ringing in her head, the whites of Abigail’s irises turned cloudy with smoke.
The world slowed.
The Fighter’s head swivelled her way.
His turn had the sluggish pace of an oscillating fan.
He was going to try to retaliate.
She would utilise the speed advantage to slip past his weapon.
From there, she would shove him off the rope bridge into the lake, which would count as an instant elimination.
With one move, she would transform the situation into a 2v2.
Team Friendship Forever’s first victory would be hers.
However, due to a combination of exhaustion and over-excitement, Abigail had lost track of the Fighter’s
When he noticed her blurry form approaching, his eyes glowed yellow. The blade of his naginata, freed from the slow-motion bonds, vacuumed up motes of metallic-bronze energy and swept down her front in a straight line. A gash down to the skin was made in her metal cuirass, then the flesh of her lightly-armoured thigh parted like a pair of red lips. A secondary effect of the Fighter’s
Crunch!
She came to a neck-jarring stop when her back slammed against the serpent statue.
Sliding down its face, she saw her health pool plummet to 7% - far below the 20% elimination cut-off used in 6v6s.
“I’m out,” she said with a sigh, releasing her weapon.
1-3.
Before the dagger could clatter on the blood-soaked dirt, a
"Too la—"
The forcefield suddenly popped, repelling the thrust of a katana aimed at Abigail's side.
The enemy Cutthroat released his sword in horror and gave an apologetic 130-degree bow. “Sumimasen, Daisy-chan! I am an unworthy toad!”
A lack of a red-name indicated that his attack had been a genuine miscalculation.
“Forget about it,” replied Abigail.
The match was already over.
On the temple, her friend, having conceded, too, was pulling out a shish kebab to appease the Red Fox yipping at him with vexation for kicking it again.
When his gaze met hers, he pointed to a lavish picnic spread being set up by waitstaff on top of a toppled stone stele. "Go rest!"
Abigail scowled.
Was he expecting her to thank him? Did he want her to kowtow in gratitude for preventing her death?
She would not.
Maintaining a petulant, sullen expression, she joined Team Friendship Forever and the University of Western Australia’s Japanese Studies Society in their recuperative meal.
Throughout, she continued to monitor Henry, who was feigning innocence behind the cover of a book.
The more she watched him, the more pronounced grew her pout.
Her irritation rose furthermore when she saw her other friends stuffing their bellies with the delicacies brought by his hired hands, oblivious to the fact that a supreme expert hid among them.
She knew.
Unlike these blind numbskulls, Abigail wasn’t a noob.
She’d been playing Saana for half a year when Cathy suggested they group together. Because re-levelling a Martial Class was fast when one had a competent guild, Abigail didn’t need to worry before deleting her original character to start anew.
With her experience, how could she miss that their young friend was abnormal?
Normal people couldn’t heal while scaling walls. Without the
Normal people would, in 9 hours of fighting, have been eliminated at some point. Every match, though, without exception, he’d waited for the rest of the team to lose, then conceded to whatever number of people he'd been beating up. One match, when just the two of them had remained, she’d tried stealthing away to test him. In response, he'd berated her for slacking off and led the enemy to her location, so she was forced to fight them to the bitter end - normal people couldn't do that, either.
Normal people also weren’t best buds with Alex Wong. When they were having dinner the other evening, Abigail had been dumbfounded by how out of touch her friends were to not recognise Alex outside of his role as their former schoolmate. Alex Wong—a.k.a. Mayonnaise, leader of Flaming Sun, likeliest candidate for The Tyrant of Saana—was a literal A-list celebrity. There were pictures of his avatar on energy drinks, Abigail’s seven-year-old brother was addicted to a Mayonnaise e-assistant game called Dumpstering Mountains, tabloid news sites were speculating about the gender of his next child, he regularly cameoed in blockbuster films...
“Excuse me, ma'am,” asked a waiter with a platter of jostling glasses, “would you like a melon banana smoothie?”
“Yes, please.”
When the waiter tried to give it to her, though, Abigail abruptly changed her mind, shoving it back.
Normal people didn’t hire personal catering to accelerate recovery between matches!
Wriggling out of her beanbag, she stormed over to Henry and loomed above him, her shadow crossing his page.
“If a certain someone had healed me earlier," she spat, "we would have won.”
“Healing in that scenario is impossible, so you should have played conservatively.” He yawned. “Besides, the purpose of practice isn’t to win; it's to improve. If you’ve learned something, then that is a victory.”
“Oh, I learned something alright.” Abigail’s hand darted out and intercepted the page he was about to flip. Lowering the book, she shoved her face in his and stared daggers into a pair of stupid sunglasses that he’d equipped half-way through the session - no doubt to mask his identity. “If you could predict the timing and trajectory needed for that
He shrugged lazily. “Yeah, but I’m a god amongst plebs. If you practice always expecting help from someone of my calibre, you’ll develop sloppy habits. Like failing to track your opponent’s
"I'm worn-out! We've been at it for 9 hours!"
"9 hours? Hah!" He
He flicked her hand away and returned to his story.
It was a fantastic tale.
He'd written it.
Abigail, meanwhile, stood around awkwardly, unmoving, speechless.
She’d been working herself up to corner him into revealing the information he’d just nonchalantly confessed. What would happen after that, she hadn’t considered, as she’d assumed that Henry—who’d always been a shifty, secretive person—would have guarded his status as a hidden expert more tightly.
Spinning around, she marched back to her beanbag and plunked herself down, resuming her pout.
“Do you still want the smoothie, mam?”
“I do.”
She took the drink and sipped it, angrily.
When her frustration boiled over again, she made another blunder. Not realising that Henry would have happily continued answering her questions, she uploaded footage from a match to The Garden of The Grotesque's guild chat.
-Putridmagnolia: Clip?
-Battered Daisy: He’s either an Earthfriend pro or a member of The Company’s elites. Unaltered avatar. Identify him for me.
-Abusive Azalea: Wow. Someone’s smurfing in the starting zone!
-Sampaguita Funeral: Not a pro. Don’t recognise him from The League’s fansigns. Unless he’s had plastic surgery to change his face. Kosumosu, is that Nilkan Freerunning?
-Kosumosu Carcass: It is...
-Putridmagnolia: Yuck! Bloodriver Stalling Shield, who chooses such a garbage martial art?
-Kosumosu Carcass: He’s very good...
-Septic Rose: AN EARTHFRIEND?! PREPOSTEROUS!
The chat went graveyard silent, all the members who'd spoken paling in case they were caught in the crossfire of whatever had infuriated their guild leader.
Septic Rose did occasionally express a dislike for the Earthfriend class, but her responses had never been so explosive.
Abigail flung up her smoothie when her guild leader’s voice rang in her ears.
-Septic Rose: What's his username?
Abigail was shocked that Septic Rose—one of Saana’s preeminent Cutthroats, an impossible-to-reach, semi-mythical character—would contact her directly.
‘Uh...Henry Flower.’
-Septic Rose: You're in a group. What's your relationship? Who are you to be healed by him?
Abigail frowned at a weird, stalker-like tone. ‘We’re not dating...if that's what you're asking? He's a friend from school. We were roped by another friend into joining The Slum Empire and participating in The Monthly Attention Recruitment Tournament. My application for character-deletion should confirm this.’
A tense quiet followed as the person on the other end—hiding under the floorboards of a dojo in Basindi, from which she would soon spring up to assassinate her target—scratched her head. Why would Cripple-gēgē participate in his own recruitment tournament?
Abigail, cleaning herself off, flinched when the next message came through.
-Septic Rose: Who asked if you were dating? Not me! Imply that again, and I’ll have you added to the K.O.S list. Tell me, why did he choose an Earthfriend?
‘Is he not an Earthfriend player?’
-Septic Rose: Of course not! He would never main that hippy roleplaying class! If he’s playing it, it’s because it’s the perfect path to his goal!
Abigail squinted. What the hell was this conversation?
-Septic Rose: Since you seem ignorant of the giant in your midst, close your investigation now! And, whatever you do, don’t tell him I know his whereabouts!
After her guild leader ended the call, Abigail, beginning to feel dizzy, looked to Henry for an answer, only to be struck with one last shocking blow.
Her friend, snickering as Cathy finally showed him her back, used his book to disguise the retrieval of a flask from his socks. Taking a hearty gulp, he exposed a thumb—the effect hard to catch due to the hand glow visual effect of the Earthfriend class—that was discoloured a deep navy blue from the drink.
The sunglasses were to hide his dilated pupils.
He’d been styling on everyone while hammered.
Then what was his true power level?
Septic Rose has transferred the title of Guild Leader to Kosumosu Carcass.
-Morning Gory: Huh?
-Kosumosu Carcass: She’ll be back in two weeks...
As the guild chat flooded with concerned inquiries, Abigail, giving up, sought out the comforting simplicity of Suchi’s cloudless blue sky.
While she was skygazing, the attention of her friends was pulled to a shout coming from the arena’s perimeter.
"Team Friendship Forever! Team Friendship Forever!" Lady Kittykat, flanked by the other two Byzantine teams, was thrusting her mini-zweihander high. “Arise and assemble, Team Friendship Forever! The duellists of Byzantium have been challenged to a Village Death Brawl!”
“Big Bro, what does that mean?”
“It means,” Henry had the kids fanning him assist him to his feet, “that an absolute genius has signed up our three newly-formed teams, who have yet to spend a minute developing inter-squad coordination, for a fight to the death against another Village.”
“Sounds dangerous!”
Henry nodded in approval. "You're starting to learn, Dan. Yes, usually, it would be suicide.”
Staring down at the Byzantines, he caught the Bowman that he’d accused of plotting—and the arranger of the Brawl—suppressing a sinister smile.
“Usually, Big Bro?”
Since Henry wasn’t in the mood to donate a Legendary from his corpse to a random Suchi scrub, he’d have to ensure they actually won this round.
He signalled a butler to dismiss the rest of the waitstaff for the day. “With me here, it doesn’t matter how garbage you all are. Let’s go, Team Turbonoobs; some even turboer noobs have offered us their gear.”