"Oh, Silash, you absolutely crack me up!" cried Tim with a smile as he sipped his martini and winked unconvincingly - he'd never learned to do it proper, so he was always kind of scrunching up his whole side of the mouth when he winked, which looked extra bad under his wooden face.

Silash uncomfortably attempted to relax as he sat in the plush, puffy little armchair overlooking the doom and carnage of Gifflenberg. It was... surreal, to say the least, to sit here in a semi-relaxed state while in his periphery he could watch buildings of his hometown exploding into smithereens.

"Listen to this, Hilu, listen to this brilliant man explain how exactly he knew what was going to happen before everything else! He can say it in big, sciencey terms - but what use is that, it's not like anybody else believed him - but he can say it in big, sciencey terms, or he can say it in ways that even people like you or I can understand, us common folk, real salt of the Nomachiato types, eh?"

A large, ornate plate flew through the air and smashed into the wall. It had been a gift to Hilu and Tim from Tim's mother. It was five centuries old, and was carved by Gharlique children, who had coincidentally happened to be prisoners of war at the time. A small shard of it flew across and cut Silash' left cheek. A small droplet of blood landed on the back of his left hand.

"Shut the fucking fuckedy fuck up, Timmy!"

"Hilu, I-"

"No, Timmy, seriously!"

"Please don't call me Timmy, H-"

"Timmy, Tim, Tim Tom, Tom Tim, Timmedy Timmedy Timmit, T-dog, T-whizzle, T-skizzle, Mister T, Iced Tea, Timothy, Timmy Tim Tamborene, I will fucking call you whatever the fuck I want to fucking call you!"

"Bu-"

"Shut the fuck up! You, you invite this stranger, this, this probably psychopath into our home, and for what? To just go on and on and on about how fucking great he is? What the fuck even is that, do you want him to fuck you or something?"

Silash cleared his throat.

"Hilu, I-"

"Shut the fuck up, Tim! Speak when spoken to! And before you say a fucking word, I am speaking at you, not to you, okay? And there is a palpable difference between the two, I mean fucks sake my heart is palpitating I mean you need to absolutely get over yourself because you are a fucking embarrasment the way you parade around you, you think you're swinging some substantial sea cucumber around fucking knocking things over and causing Nomachiattoquakes but you're fucking not, Tim! You're just a guy who got lucky with his fucking system. Big whoop! You know half the world has systems, Timmy Tim T-bone? Half the fucking world. And almost nobody chooses the [skills] you do. You understand the whole nature versus nurture debate with systems, right? And how they're like, what, fucking ninety percent nurture after the initial seed system, essentially before you do any leveling up? Do you understand how fucked in the head, how demented and unoriginal you have to be, how boring of a person you have to be in order to basically say, fuck this, fuck fighting or magic or anything cool, I just want a bunch of useless material gains that nobody else gives a shit about? Look at me, Tim, look at me with those big, stupid, glowing eyeballs of yours. Take the fucking sunglasses off, gods know you don't fucking need them, and look me in my big, stupid, glowing eyeballs before I fucking smash every fucking money counting trophy you own!"

"WHAT?! But Hilu, how could-"

Tim owned a lot of money counting trophies. Professional money counting trophies were hard to come by for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there was a hefty initiation fee to join the ICMC, the International Club of Money Counting. After all, it was a club based entirely on money and counting it, so it only made sense for it to be costly to join. Along with that, there was also of course the situation wherein each money counting contest only took place when people got together and pooled massive amounts of money together to sponsor the contest fees. There was then of course the fact that every trophy was made out of melted down money, but that was little compared to, of course, the biggest factor of all. The biggest factor was that, well, the only person who could count the most money was the person who could obtain the most money to count in the first place. That is to say the money counting events were strictly BYOM, and often always put on as a way for the wealthy few to, essentially, just kind of show off. That being said, if you asked the ICMC, anyone who paid the initial fee was more than welcome to attend any and all events, as long as they were okay not being on the sponsors' list.

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There was, in the history of money counting as a sport, a long honored tradition of newly wealthy families bringing paltry stacks of money with which to count, count, and count away - and then leave before everyone else to go get dinner somewhere. There were also other situations of course, there were situations where people would, through effect of sheer will, determination, fortitude, terpitude, ineptitude, and mostly, of course, delusion, that upon some point in time wherein they felt that, for whatever possible and indeed absurd reason, that they could win the money counting contest. Perhaps they'd convinced themselves that it was any other kind of contest other than a money counting contest, but this was far from the truth in actuality. It was always a money counting contest.

The strengths of these delusions were transient, and gradual, and were never always the same. Usually, someone, maybe just one man, potentially a small flock of them, or maybe even a woman, would come up with a paltry stack of currency slips and count them arduously, slowly, indeed so slow that for a second or two it would seem as though that their act of counting had an event horizon. Still, on they would count, and as there was barely anything to count, it would end before much longer. At this time they would proclaim themselves the winner, and the judges would immediately sigh and hand them a small participation badge of acknowledgment, as thusly labeled. It was hotly debated how many people that performed this specific act were actually experiencing delusions, and how many of them were just doing it because of tradition or indeed as a bit of a gag.

On the other hand, there were real times when delusion was deadly apparent. There were a few records of people tapdancing wildly as if their lives depended on it. There were always at least two singers, and three or four people who had a series of contrasting, dramatic monologues to perform. There was always a track at money counting contests, because of all the runners - some of whom stayed on for long sitances, others whom performed sprints, and of course all of these were in tandem. There was a long pool for the swimmers, and there were trails built for the competitive hikers. The rock lifters got a dusty tent, but they liked it that way. There were even some taumans that would spend time skipping rocks across lakes, and that too was something that was provided by the contest, as it was another very common delusion.

People not experiencing these delusions who also did not have any money to count often found themselves looking to spectate the delusions moreso than the money counting. After all, what was the money counting but a long series of rich people looking at stuff they already had and tallying it up? Who wanted to watch that when there were jugglers standing next to skydivers, both of whom were totally convinced that they were competing in the same contest at the same time, and that they were going to be the winner of that contest.

But of course, the contest was still, ultimately, about money counting. It always was, and it always had been, and it always would be. So, Tim, with his massive amounts of system generated wealth, predictably won every single contest he attended. And he never missed a contest.

So what he had was, essentially, a row of trophies made out of, funny enough, melted down assets of his own and of his competitors. And this was good for Tim, he loved this - he loved to look at it with pride, he loved to see all these trophies to money counting with his name etched into them, etched into melted-down money. It was money on money on money, as those that remembered the contest was about money to other people that remembered that the contest was really about money.

And Hilu walked over and extended her bony hand, and she knocked over every single trophy in one fell swoop. Tim screamed, he cried, he cowered before her, he glowered and her showered her with apologies and begging. It was a shameful and shameless display.

Silash, seeing this opportunity, tried to stand up from his seat in order to quickly make an escape. He'd quickly decided that being in the room with these crazy rich people was not going to be any safer than being outside around the literal apocalypse, or what seemed to be the apocalypse.

But he couldn't. He couldn't move.

Tim stood up, wiping tears off his wooden face. "Funny," he said with a smile, looking at Silash. "I think I know exactly what we ought to do in order to... get over this." He looked to Hilu. "It's taken effect on him. Look at him, baby. He can't move at all."

Hilu smiled a wicked grin and tiptoed over to Silash. She looked at his glassy, unblinking eyes. "Well, well, well." She walked up to Silash and squeezed his right shoulder. "What will we do with you?"