“How many are there?”

The frazzled steward took a moment to adjust his robe before giving his report. “Twenty six. They’re all in the third floor meditation room like you instructed, but…” He grimaced, unable to hide his distaste even through the mask of pure politeness Shinki Itten stewards universally perfected. “Can you really teach them? They’re, they’re all…animals!”

“Don’t worry,” Shin promised. “I’ll teach them alright. They’re going to learn a lot today.”

The other kobold clearly didn’t understand, but was too eager to wash his hands of the matter to say so. “Okay then. Good luck.”

Shin nodded, setting aside his tea to make his way down the tower stairs. Twenty six Players, huh? So Twenty Six Players sending Twenty Six reports was all it took to threaten the very existence of his home? He’d always known that the arbiters of the System held this zone’s worth to be cheap, but it was somehow freeing to have an exact value on the matter.

If only he could figure out a way to upset Players in strict batches of twenty five at a time. He’d be immortal.

Even if the steward hadn’t told him the room where the Players had been warehoused, the muffled sounds of boisterous roughhousing was as sure as a signal flare to Shin’s Enhanced Senses. He paused long enough to offer the Banken stationed at either side of the door a nod, then slid open the door and strode purposefully into the meditation room.

The place was already an utter wreck, destroyed by the two dozen plus Players waiting around inside. ‘Accidentally’, Shin was sure. For the moment, though, they all stared at him in anticipation, a few with looks of faux innocence and a few with truly devious gleams in their eyes, but all of them with a blue Streaming icon shimmering over their heads.

Shin had two audiences, it would seem. Best not to keep them waiting.

“So!” Shin exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “All of you are wisdom seekers, then? Hoping to walk a path of knowledge and self-discovery?”

The Players all attempted to give their replies at once, more than a few repeating their joke responses over and over at louder volumes in an attempt to drown out the neighbors who were doing the exact same thing.

Shin paid the ungodly din no mind, however, acting as if the Players had given him a polite chorus of yeses as he plastered a pleasant smile on his face. “Oh good! That’s so good! Then I have a very special gift for all of you!”

At that moment, Shin knew he had come to a crossroads. He could go through with his plan, yes. It would probably work, and then he’d take the next step and the next until Shinki Itten’s future was secured. Or he could march outside, grab every lantern he could carry, hurl them inside and then barricade the door, trapping all of these awful Players in a fiery coffin from which there was no escape.

Both options. Both good.

…Eh. Let’s stick with Plan A.

If the Players were surprised when the prompts popped before their faces, few of them showed it. But by the time they’d finally read what was written there, it was a different story. “The fuck is this?” one of them demanded. “You actually expect us to do this?”

“Oh, gosh!” Shin breathed. “I don’t really expect anything! Enlightenment is a difficult road, and there is no such thing as failure along its path, but maybe if you focus some of you will–”

“Nuh-uh, no way,” a Player insisted, waving away his prompt. “I’m not doing this. Teach me Carpentry in the normal way.”

“This is the normal way,” Shin stated, a hint of flatness poisoning his chipper tone. “This is now the normal way to learn a Profession in Shinki Itten. There is no other option. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. So stick around here and learn to pound nails, or go somewhere else and pound sand.”

The uproar of outrage that assaulted Shin’s ears as he turned away from the Players was such music that he couldn’t resist humming along, his mood significantly lifted as he firmly slid the door shut behind him. He wasn’t so distracted, however, that he didn’t address the two Banken. “Get a Wild Son or Daughter on anyone who leaves this room,” he ordered, “For as long as they’re within our zones.”

The guards nodded, one of the two tilting his head. “Just observation? Or…?”

“Well. As long as they mind their manners, sure. But tell the Wild Children that if they get even a whiff of Red coming off of any of them, they’re free to drag them off into the forest for anything they’d like. These punks are all low Level. It won’t be much of a fight.”

“Understood.”

As much as the current situation of his city still enraged Shin, he had to admit: there was a certain charm in having foes that he didn’t have to morally struggle over. It appealed to the little nubbin of his brain that was still one hundred percent mongrel. These guys were Shit, there were no two ways about it.. And Shit Gets Buried was a close second to Big is Good in the mongrel pantheon of Big Truths.

Shin had time to make it all the way back to his quarters, pour himself a cup of tea, and indulge in a long, soothing sniff from the delightfully herbaceous cup before he felt himself being dragged into the Inside Place. Goddess, that was fast. He supposed writing an official report must not take much time, then. And the fact that these time wasting clowns were so outraged that the script had been turned on them?

Yeah. Pieces of Shit. Shin allowed himself a satisfied smile, even as he snapped fully into the geometrically insane world that existed between Magica and the System. It was nice when everything made sense.

If the Sky Voice shared even an ounce of Shin’s quiet pleasure, it was doing a magnificent job of hiding it. “One fucking hour? Seriously?! You’ve been unrestricted for one hour and you’re over the limit again?!”

Oh excellent, Shin realized with a start. His cup of tea had been brought along with him. He inhaled deeply from the amber liquid once more, reveling in the wisps of fennel and caraway that playfully gamboled beneath the sea of springy lemon. Goddess, that was nice.

“Oh you little shit, if you think you can sit there and ignore me, you’ve got–”

“There are no complaints about Shinki Itten Trainers,” Shin casually remarked, allowing himself another deep sniff of his tea. “Zero. I’m sure of it.”

The sheer confidence in Shin’s voice forced Sky Voice to pause, its arm still raised to knock the teacup out of the kobold’s hands. “...the fuck are you talking about? I’ve got the reports right here. Every single one of them is complaining about Shinki Itten's Professions. Every single one of them mentions you.”

Shin shrugged. “I’m certain they do, but that’s just blaming the messenger. If you look a bit more closely, you’ll find those complaints are in fact all about a quest.”

“.........” Sky Voice straightened back up, waving its hand to summon a prompt. It rapidly clicked through several screens, fingers scrolling across a flood of information in impatient silence. Then the Sky Voice began to read, doubtful at first but increasingly intrigued as it shuffled through complaints . “Okay, yes. These are all flagged as being Quest-Related, but the text of the complaints all insist that the issue is with Profession Training. The fuck is up with that?”

“Well, it’s simple enough,” Shin replied. “You listened to the complaints of your Players, made a sincere inventory of their issues, and have changed the way Shinki Itten handles Professions.”

“Did I, huh?" Sky Voice tapped the side of its head in a pantomime of faux confusion. "Funny. That’s news to me.”

“Is it? How strange. Well don’t mention that to whoever your boss is, because it’s really a solid system. You’ll want to get full credit, I’m sure.”

“Let’s back up a second here.” The Moderator floated over towards Shin, circling around him in a ponderous circle. “You’ve got one Quest that covers all Professions?”

“Yep.”

“How the fuck does that work?”

“It’s simple.” Shin lowered his cup, his ears perking forward as he detailed his plan. “The Player goes into the meditation room. They commune with their ancestors for a time. And once they’ve forged a present-day bond with the wisdom of the past, they are imbued with the knowledge that they seek.”

“...So what is actually happening on this Quest?”

Shin shrugged again. “The Player has to sit quietly in a room for four hours. If they can’t, sucks for them. If they can, they get to be a journeyman Brewer or whatever.”

Sky Voice scoffed. “Wait, so you’re just giving them the Skills? We don’t hand out shit here, okay? People have to put in work in KoM.”

“Is that right?” The kobold leaned forward, his tail lifting in a show of contest. “I left the Players maybe ten minutes ago. How about you take a little look and see if they feel like they’re putting in work.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Despite lacking a face, Sky Voice very clearly rolled its eyes. “Fine. Whatever.” The Moderator pinched its fingers together and then drew them apart, a silvery sheet of something very much like water expanding between its digits. “Don’t whine when this blows up in your face, though.”

“Mm.” Shin took another sniff of his tea, radiating a complete lack of concern. “I’ll try.”

Sky Voice punched something into the bottom of its Scrying Mirror, grumbling in annoyance. “This has got to be the first time anyone’s used one of these to spy on a room full of dudes just around sitting quietly. If anyone sees this search log, they’re gonna either think I’m super boring or some sort of mega pervert.” A rainbow-tinted wash rippled over the surface of the silvery sheet, Sky Voice gesturing smugly towards it as the meditation room swirled into focus. “See? Just a bunch of guys……” The Moderator trailed off, leaning in to squint at the Scrying Screen. “Uh, how many did you say where there when you left?”

“Twenty six.”

“Well there are only ten now. Sixteen of them couldn’t shut up for ten minutes?”

Shin tilted his head. “You’re really that surprised that a bunch of attention addicts can’t handle a moment of quiet introspection? Especially ones who are trying to Stream. How many of them do you think lost all of their viewers after the first two minutes of absolute silence?”

Sky Voice considered that. “Yeah, well, those ten are sticking with it, aren’t they?”

“All ten of them? No. Maybe one or two are, but the rest of them are just sticking around so they can–”

The kobold didn’t need to finish that thought. As if on cue, one of the Players pressed his hands together and released a hideously loud fake fart sound in the middle of the meditation room. One of the others burst up from his seat, completely furious, while the others simply looked sour that they’d been beaten to the punch.

“What the fuck man?!” the outraged Player yelled. “You fucking threw off my concentration! Now I gotta fucking start all over again!”

“Sowwy~!” The clearly not-sorry Player squeaked. “I gotta toot sometimes! I gots them butt trubs!”

“Jesus,” Sky Voice swore, waving away the Scrying Screen. “They’re trolling each other. Dante missed the fucking mark; I have seen the Eighth Circle of Hell and it is worse than he could have possibly imagined.”

Shin had no clue what that meant, but he was pretty sure he’d gotten his point across. “See? I think you’ll agree that no one is getting anything for free in that room.”

“Yeah, no doubt." A touch of reproach reentered Sky Voice's words. "But this is supposed to be a Crafting Hub, and now no one can learn any Professions in it. That’s a fucking problem.”

“Welll~,” Shin intoned, his tail waggling impishly. “If a Profession trainer doesn’t sense any of a Player’s ancestors calling them down a path of enlightenment, I suppose they could always just teach them in the normal fashion. The meditation room is really just for special cases.” Shin couldn’t have kept the venom out of his voice even if he’d wanted to. “We just happen to have a lot of special cases in Shinki Itten right now.”

“Right, so basically all you’ve done here is create a Fuck Off Room to dump all the trolls in.”

“Your words, not mine.” Shin dipped a finger into his tea. Bah, it was cold. “I’ve given you a perfectly reasonable explanation for every choice I’ve made, with solid cultural support within this zone’s Tribe. It’s all perfectly valid.”

Sky Voice clearly wasn’t convinced yet. “They’re still going to file reports about it.”

“Sure, but those won’t be complaints accusing citizens of not doing their jobs, so there won’t be any reason to delete anybody.”

“That’s just passing the fucking buck!” Sky Voice proclaimed. “It doesn’t change the fact that the complaints will still be rolling in!”

Ugh, how was this person so dense? “Do Players not file complaints about Quests very often?”

“They file complaints about Quests all the time.”

“Do you guys care about those complaints?”

“Well, I mean, not really,” Sky Voice confessed. “That's just no-lifers thinking they could make this game better than we can. We actually like to share around the particularly funny quest complaints. People complain that they can’t get through the simplest shit; you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Oh? The simplest shit? Like, say, just sitting in a room and not being a complete asshole for a few hours?”

“That’s–” The Sky Voice paused, gears finally beginning to turn within its featureless head. “Okay, but…what do I tell my boss, then? I can’t just say I did all this to make life nicer for some random NPCs.”

Oh right; Goddess forbid anyone think a Moderator might have lowered themselves to show a smidge of empathy to NPCs. Not that Shin hadn’t already considered Sky Voice’s reluctance. “Well I guess you’ll have to tell your boss that you came up with a way to partition your most problematic Players from the ones who just want to have a nice time, while simultaneously creating a way to force those problem Players to burn time in your zone. And then you probably tell him to start the paperwork on your promotion.”

Shin shook his head, allowing the scorn to flash across his eyes for the first time. “I’ve got ten Players paying you for the privilege of just sitting in a room for hours upon end, and you’re telling me to do my job better. How much nicer am I supposed to serve all of this up for you?”

A heavy silence fell over the Inside Place at that, the Sky Voice’s empty visage a true blank slate for once. For a moment, Shin worried that he’d misread things, had managed to push matters too far. But then a chair flickered into existence at his side. “Take a seat, Shin.”

So he’d gotten his Chair Privileges back, had he? That was a good sign.

Shin settled down gratefully, setting his teacup onto the little end table that popped into being as the Sky Voice wafted down, floating in a seated position across from the kobold. “You know something, Shin? You’re a pretty smart guy.”

The Schemer accepted the patronizing praise with far more dignity than it deserved. “Thank you.”

Sky Voice laced its fingers together, giving the impression of probing insight as it leaned in. “But here’s something that even a smart guy like you probably doesn’t know. Contrary to the impression you might have understandably formed, we Mods don’t really like to be as,” –It mimed a pair of quotes midair– “‘Hands On’ as the last month or so in this zone might have led you to believe.”

“Sure,” Shin conceded. “You’re probably busy people.”

“Absolutely. And Magica is supposed to be a self-contained System, right? So whenever possible we really prefer to let matters on the ground work themselves out.”

Shin waved his hand in a grand display, providing his own fanfare. “Magica’s Best Moderator is Magica’, or something like that.”

“That’s exactly right, and I am definitely going to steal that.” Sky Voice leaned back, seemingly now fully at ease. “So from time to time we like to empower certain individuals of a certain caliber with extra responsibilities, extra duties.” Somehow, the eyeless Moderator managed to wink. “And extra perks, of course.”

“And you’re suggesting that I might be one of said individuals, right?”

“Well. Maybe. It’s complicated. There’s an…overlap issue.”

“Mm.” Shin nodded. “King Glandem.”

Sky Voice tapped its fingers against its arm, giving the impression of a slowly spreading smile. “...Yeah, he was right. You really are smart. Yes, I’m talking about Glandem. We’re already invested in him, and he wants you out of the picture.”

Shin tutted. “That’s no good.”

“It’s really not. So you can see my dilemma, yes? There are obviously benefits to working with you, you've made that abundantly clear. But with Glandem already settled in, I have to–”

“ –’You have to let matters on the ground work themselves out’,” Shin finished for the Moderator. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“Not exactly. But it certainly sounds like you have a suggestion.”

“It’s simple. You must know that Glandem and I are already in direct conflict, right?” Sky Voice nodded, and so Shin carried on. “So just stay out of it. Completely. The two of us will continue on with our little schemes, and eventually it should be clear which of us has presented the best argument for ourselves. When that day comes you simply swoop in, claim to have always been on that person’s side, and give the other one the boot.”

Sky Voice chuckled, appearing to be supremely pleased with the paths this terminations-turned-interview had started down. “Heh, alright. I can sell that. Though I’ll have to tell Glandem about this too, to keep things sporting.”

“Sporting?” Shin drained his tea, carelessly throwing the cup over his shoulder to spiral endlessly into the shapeless nether. “If Glandem doesn’t know this conversation happened by this time tomorrow, just declare me the victor right away. It’d mean he’s useless. Lack of competition has turned him soft.”

“You’re mean-spirited, Shin. I like it.” Sky Voice lifted back up into the air, sounding as if it was shifting to other matters as it turned away from Shin. “Fine, I suppose this is the last you’ll see of me for a while. My associate will stay up to date on your situation, and I guess I’ll just have to wait and see who wins.” The Moderator favored Shin with a final glance over its shoulder. “I do hope it’s you, though. Glandem’s always whining about the most pointless shit.”

Shin stood as his chair began to fizzle away. “Yeah, well, I hope it’s me, too.”

If the Sky Voice gave a response, it was lost as the kobold faded out of the Inside Place and back into his quarters. Woof, okay. So that was handled. He sat back down, wearily pouring himself another cup of tea as he took stock of his efforts.

The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t deny it. He’d made a deal with a devil. And honestly, it didn’t bother him as much as it probably should have. That deal had saved Shinki Itten lives today, and that already proved its value. If he had to find a way to break it tomorrow, well, so what?

Wasn’t that what being a Schemer was all about?