Shin slept, but the System did not.

Goddess but did he wish that he could swap that around, though. That it could be someone or something else’s turn to waft restlessly through this void beyond reality itself every single night. To ignore the banal prattling of bored, uncaring demigods on one side and the increasingly insistent thrum of that damn symbol on the other, its promises of unwanted knowledge becoming more and more of a demand.

Though it wasn’t as if there was much hope of him getting a restful nights’ sleep even without his nocturnal trials. It was going to take at least another day’s travel for their group to reach Brightly, and that meant camping out. Shin could handle the out of doors, yes, but a sleeping pile that consisted of three kobolds and Bex just wasn’t the same.

Maybe if they’d managed to convince Wren to join in. The old elf insisted on keeping watch. Elves are weird. Blah.

With as close to a sigh as he could manage while fully discorporated, Shin grudgingly turned his attention towards where the Leash emerged from the dense emptiness of that place.

The Leash. Why was that the term his brain insisted on dredging up for the damn thing? It was just a pair of concentric circles, the inner pure white and the outer pitch black. Really that made it more of a Ring, right? Or an Eclipse!

Let’s start calling it The Eclipse, Shin suggested to his own Brain. That’s a reasonable compromise, right?

No, declared Shin’s Brain, with the finality of a stated fact. It is The Leash. The Man from the Memory called Magica The Leashed World, and so that is The Leash.

Alright well Shin was having an argument with his own consciousness now, and he was losing that argument, so the kobold could only shrug and accept that he’d officially gone insane. Frankly, it was something of a relief to get something, anything really, conclusively settled. It wasn’t the sturdiest rock to build a foundation upon, but Shin knew he wasn’t exactly in a position to be too choosy.

That only left one path forward, didn’t it? So with all the confidence of someone who knows they’re making a bad choice but no longer cares, Shin reached out with his non-existent arm and pressed his not-a-hand into the center circle of The Leash.

————————————————————————————

“–think we’re next, do you?” Abby seems anxious, and it’s hard to blame her. “I mean, if they can fire Gwen…”

“I don’t think we need to worry,” Lakshmi shrugs, the wheels of her desk chair squeaking as she rolls over to join the huddle. “Besides, are we even sure Gwen got fired fired? I’m pretty sure she’s just getting some sort of lateral promotion to another project.”

You’re not so certain about that. The look on Gwen’s face when she left her meeting with The Higher Ups did not scream ‘I’m Looking Forward to my New Opportunity’. It was a lot more ‘I Need to Go Print Out a Bunch of Resumes”.

“God I hate new bosses.” Abby grimaces at her reflection in your powered-down monitor, eyes darting to her septum ring and buzzed to nearly bald head. “Think they’ll make a big deal about the work attire policy? You know how most manager types are. Don’t know shit about code or the real guts of development, so they just jump on any little thing they do understand and make it a huge deal.”

“Maybe we've got some good news on that front, guys.” Jay’s a little out of breath as he leans over the cubicle, an unexpected gleam in his eye. “I just came from the lobby and I think I saw who they’re sending. It’s Arnaud.”

Lakshmi blinks. “Arnaud? That Arnaud? Assault on Outer Worlds Arnaud?”

Jay nods and Abby lets out a whistle. “I thought he was retired or something?”

“Me too. But apparently not, and apparently we’re his next project.”

Jesus. This changes things. You thought Gwen was good at her job, and certainly wish her the best? But Assault on Outer Worlds started out as some obscure little thing Mundi used for in-house security training. Then Arnaud got involved, and it became the single biggest game ever. Maybe even the single biggest step forward in how the world interacted with media ever.

And now he’s getting involved with Kingdoms of Magica? That tells you two things: the High Ups expect this project to be another world-changing success, and they aren’t taking any risks about it.

You’d better not take any risks either. “Well let’s not just be standing around when he gets here, right? Everyone back to your stations.” You reach into your desk drawer and fish out a lint roller, waving it at Lakshmi before she can leave. “Want to give yourself a quick once over?”

“Really?” The woman scans herself, plucking a wad of scraggly fur off of her sleeve. “There, got it.”

“Not even close.” You waggle the roller at her again. “You are absolutely covered in cat hair.”

“Purrsephone has been stressed.” Wow, she’s only run it down one arm and it’s already coming back like a shag carpet. “She’s on seven different medications and is still recovering from her surgery.”

“I have no idea how you always manage to find the sickest cats in existence.”

“They find me.” Lakshmi’s brow is furrowed, the lint roller looking like the most revolting stick of cotton candy you’ve ever seen. “They need me.”

God you hope Arnaud isn’t allergic to cats. If the Magica team sends Mundi’s most successful developer into anaphylactic shock you’re definitely all getting shitcanned.

Okay. Monitor on, System loading and…perfect timing. Your current project is pulled up, you’re already deep into the thick of it, and the voice that you hear coming down into your workstation sounds legitimately intrigued. “What’re you working on?”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

You glance up. Huh. That’s one normal looking dude, pushing up his normal-looking glasses as he peers down at your screen. From the stories you’d heard, you were expecting some sort of hybrid between Steve Jobs and Hunter S. Thompson. “Flora and Fauna Generation.”

“Oh?” The man (Arnaud, right? Gotta be) slips around your cubicle wall and into your station, leaning in to get a better look. “Oh, you’re using The System to code this?”

He knows about The System, too? Wow, the Higher Ups actually attached a manager to a project he understands. You thought that was, like, a violation of corporate ethics or something.

He’s clearly interested, and you’re pretty eager to talk about it so that suits you just fine. “Yeah, I’ve been really digging into what we can do with this. The System goes way beyond any sort of procedural or AI-generated content we’ve ever worked with. Look,”–You swivel away on your chair, giving the man easier access to what you’re working on–”By creating a few dozen Keystone plants and creatures, The System can extrapolate that out into an entire functional ecosystem. Wild, right?”

“Mm.” Arnaud adjusts his glasses. “What do you have for Keystones so far?”

“So far? Well just this for right now.” You punch a few commands into your rig, and a large purple fruit appears rotating on the screen. “I’m calling it a ‘Plom’. Name’s not final.”

“A Plom.” Arnaud glances over at you. “Is that like a plum?”

“I mean, sort of? It’s bigger and the taste is a kinda off, and the blossoms are sort of–”

“So it’s like the bargain brand version of a plum. The bagged-cereal version of a plum. A community theater production of a plum.” Arnaud pushes his glasses up again. “How long have you been working on 'Ploms'?”

This has taken a bad turn. “Um. I mean, The System wants pretty granular input. We’re building from the level of DNA here; that doesn’t happen overnight.”

“Okay, so it happens over how many overnights?”

“...Like a week?”

“Wow, cool.” Arnaud straightens up, raising his voice as he claps his hands together. “Alright people, I know you’re already listening in, so how about we group up real quick? I promise that this isn’t going to take long.”

God that sounded ominous. Do you have a cardboard box big enough to hold all of your shit? You might have to abandon your desk calendar.

Arnaud pulls a slip of paper from his shirt pocket as the others shuffle over, giving it a quick scan before looking back up at the others. “Right. You’re Lakshmi?” The woman nods hesitantly, already freshly festooned with cat hair from her work station.

“Abebi?” You don’t miss that Abby has surreptitiously removed her septum ring and donned a headscarf, looking practically conservative as she raises her hand in acknowledgement.

“You’re Doug, we just met. Hello again, Doug.” He pats you on the head before glancing back down at his paper. “Soo…” Arnaud frowns, squinting an eye at the final person. “Cee Yo June? I’m definitely saying that wrong.”

The other man clears his throat. “You can just call me Jay, it’s fine.”

“No I’ll get it right eventually. So!” Arnaud jerks a thumb towards your screen. “Ploms, huh? What do we think, gang?”

Somehow you don’t think you’re being invited to offer your opinion on the matter. Jay and Abby don’t seem to know how to respond, but Lakshmi speaks up. “I think they’re fascinating.”

Arnaud cocks an eyebrow. “Really? How so?”

“Because it’s not like the usual work, he didn’t just stretch a purple apple mesh over a wire frame ball or something. Doug’s created what is, on nearly every level, an actual thing. Are you trying to say that isn’t fascinating?”

God you could kiss her. And really, really want to kiss her, even despite her nightmare cat scenario. Ugh you're maybe getting fired, this is the worst possible time for that thought.

Your new boss seems a little less convinced. “I almost agree with you. Almost. What’s truly fascinating are the tools being used here, not what they actually created. Here, budge up.” You grudgingly stand up as Arnaud slips into your chair, fingers already clacking away at your keyboard as he enters new commands. “But you’re dead on about one thing: Our Doug has created something out of nothing. So what does that make him?”

What does that make…huh? “I don’t understand the question?”

“Well that’s disappointing, Doug, because it was a five-word question.” Arnaud is already multiple pages deep into new code, and your eyes are having trouble keeping up. “Anyone else have a guess?”

Abby helplessly shrugs. “Uh, he’s a coder right?”

“Wrong; absolutely wrong. It makes him a God.” Arnaud shoots you a sideways grin that strikes you as singularly uncollegial. “A very dull God, to be specific, because he’s used his ultimate powers of creation to give us a bad piece of fruit.” He hits Enter, and your monitor is filled with the whirling deluge of unreadable data that signifies The System is busy. “There.”

“There what?” Jay scratches his head. “What did you just do?”

“I just finished Flora and Fauna Generation for Doug. Told The System to copy and paste Earth’s ecosystems, as well as ripping off the bestiaries of the five most popular fantasy IPs in the world. Plus ploms; didn’t want to waste Doug’s weeks of work. Took like thirty seconds. The System will have it all processed and done in a few days.”

“Oh.” The other three coders share a curious look. “It can do that?”

“Woof, I guess we’re all learning today aren’t we. Anyways, don’t be discouraged Doug.” Arnaud reaches up to pat you on the head again, and you’ve never been more certain that you hate a man. “You’re the only person on this team so far who’s even dipped a toe into what The System is truly capable of. They’re all still thinking like coders, but you at least see that we’re working with more powerful tools here.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re very welcome.” Arnaud pushes up his glasses. “But you need to think a little bigger, okay? No one is going to jump into our painstakingly shaped world so they can eat shittier versions of fruit they can eat at home. You don’t need to worry about the little details, just so long as you make sure the big details are rad as hell. Get me?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Fantastic. And that definitely goes for all of you, okay?” Arnaud gestures grandly towards your screen, still whirling with activity as it remakes an entire world. “Stop thinking like coders. This world…” He glances up at Lakshmi. “What did they decide to call it?”

“Kingdoms of Magica.”

That prompts a burst of laughter. “Seriously? That name is so stupid. How fucking perfect.” He gazes down at the monitor, and you can’t help sensing a change in his demeanor. “This Magica is ours, to do whatever we want with. It’s our prize. The reward for all of our efforts. So everyone’s job for the next few days is to sit at your desks and think up whatever you can that is more interesting than ploms, okay?”

You had so many other ideas for fruit. Better hide that list before Arnaud spots it. “And then what?”

“And then, The System will have finished remaking our piece of the world, and we get to go inside.” Arnaud pushes up his glasses, a wolfish glint to his smile. “And I show all of you how being a God is done.”