As the Shin and his group stared at the villagers of Brightly and they stared back, the kobold was struck by a vision of the future.
It was a brisk autumn day, in a field bursting with wheat, and there were all of their corpses kitted out in silly clothes and strewn up as scarecrows. A contented-looking villager glanced curiously at the macabre scene, pausing his reaping long enough to remark to his neighbor. “Remind me what the deal was with those guys?”
“Oh,” the other man remarked, rolling his eyes. “Those dummies. They came to our creepy-ass village and for some reason didn’t think we’d use their corpses in some freaky folk ritual.”
“Wow. What a bunch of dopes!”
“For sure. Especially Shin. ‘Schemer’, huh? More like, um,”–he scrunched his brow in thought, failing to come up with anything–”...I dunno. Something else like it, but ironic. I don’t do wordplay, I do rural-themed murder.”
The first villager scoffed. “Shin probably knew a bunch of words that rhyme with Schemer in an ironic way.”
“Yeah totally. And that’s why he and all his friends are dead now, and we’re having a fantastic harvest.”
“Yeah man, yeah!”
They both jumped into the air, freezing in a pose of wild celebration as behind them a bird pecked out Scarecrow Shin’s eyeball. The Schemer always knew it would end this way. Tale as old as time.
And then Shin snapped back into the present, and one of the villagers haltingly spoke out, tugging at his bushy beard with such twitchy fingers that it was a shock he hadn’t ripped it clean off his jaw. “You, um…supplies? You brought the supplies?”
“Right, yes!” Cho snatched up one of the discarded saddlebags, Bex picking up the other as the elven faux-Player offered the satchel towards the hesitating citizen. “These, right?”
Words spilled seemingly unbidden from the man’s lips as he reached trembling for the supplies. “Oh no so few,” he intoned, rushing emotionlessly through what must have been a scripted response. “Can we really survive on just this we have to ask the mayor–”
“Don’t tell the mayor!” the rest of the gathered townsfolk screamed in unison, muscles tense and eye bulging. They surged in front of the bearded man as he continued rambling through his monologue, as if they might stop the Players from any potential mayoral visits with every drop of blood in their bodies.
Three of them held the oblivious man with grips uncomfortably close to his neck, fingers clawing deeply into his skin. Shin had little doubt that if any of them thought strangling their neighbor to death might keep the mayor’s isolation for just a moment longer, they would take that trade in a heartbeat.
“Uh,” Cho started, glancing sidelong at Bex. “Okay? I guess we won’t?”
As if the girl’s quizzical half-agreement had been magic words, the mood of the townsfolk immediately transformed.
The majority of them turned on their heels and wandered merrily away, chattering about their chores and day-to-day gossip and acting as though they hadn’t just been involved in a town-wide staredown. A dozen or so remained behind, their once blank faces beaming as a woman in well-worn farmers clothes offered Cho her most ingratiating smile. “Well obviously you’ll tell the mayor eventually, right? But maybe there isn’t that big of a rush?”
She jerked her eyes towards the remaining townsfolk. “There’s no rush, right?”
The others practically fell over themselves in their eagerness to agree.
“Oh no!”
“No rush~!”
“So much else to do!”
“Mayors are so busy he’s probably busy!”
Meanwhile, Shin couldn’t help but notice that the man who had taken the supplies seemed to have slipped into a sort of fugue state, mumbling his scripted lines over and over to himself as he stroked the saddlebag. “Hey, is he alright?”
The farmer barely managed the effort to shoot Shin a dirty glance. “He’s fine. He just loves supplies. The guy’s crazy for them. He got what he needs; we don’t need to talk about him anymore.”
Cho piped up. “Well, what do you need?”
The townsfolk sucked in a simultaneous breath as another inadvertent mystic incantation washed over them, holding for a moment before releasing a gasp so suffused with relief that it was practically in the shape of a smiley face.
One of the men struck first, blurting out a request while his neighbors were still silently shaking. “We’ve got a little grain still set aside, but those damned rats keep trying to get at it! Could you go to the silo and try to do something about them?”
Before Cho could agree, the others babbled out their own requests.
“The infirmary is almost out of medicine but if you go find this herb it’ll–”
“–husband went missing last night he said he was going to the–”
“–teach you crafting! Please please please let me teach you crafting!”
“–bees! Filled with bees! Could you possibly–”
Was this how any of this was supposed to go? Judging by the look on Bex’s face, no, it very much was not. Still, the Player was set on doing her best to improve this experience for her friend.
“Oh, did you want to do any crafting stuff?” Bex waggled a finger towards the desperate-looking man in the blacksmith’s apron. “If you don’t, you can clear that guy’s quest just by saying so.”
“Uh, okay.” Cho cleared her throat, planted her feet, and pointed a finger at the desperate-looking man in the blacksmith’s apron. “I do not want to do any crafting.”
The girl’s declaration of non-intent rolled off of her tongue and struck the blacksmith with the weight of a boulder, the man staggering in such a display of rubber-boned relief that it was a wonder he didn’t collapse in on himself. The other villagers crowded in as he toddled away in empty-headed bliss, looking for all the world like children with their faces pressed up against a candy store window. “Us too?” the man with the rat problem pleaded. “Us next?”
“Let’s see; one sec.” Bex popped open a few windows, humming thoughtfully at what she saw. “They always batch these quests together, so we can do a couple all at once. How about…”–she flicked a few of her screens towards Cho–”This one, this one and this one?”
“Um, okay!” The deity-turned-Player clicked the three windows, and three of the villagers began to shiver. “These are all right outside the village, right?” She glanced over her shoulder at Bex. “So we just pop out and take care of them?”
“But you’ll be back, right?” demanded the rat-plagued townsperson, the only one of them left out. “Right? You’ll definitely be back?”
“Of course!” insisted Cho, flashing the man a thumbs up. “We’ll be right back and we’ll totally kill those bats for you.”
“Rats,” insisted the man. “You have to kill the rats.” A sudden thought gripped him, panic dripping down his face as he turned beet red. “Unless that’s a dealbreaker for you! You can kill any bats you find! Do you need me to find bats? I will stuff the grain silo to the brim with bats if you promise to kill the rats.”
Cho blinked. “That’s, um, not necessary. But I’m digging the enthusiasm. Getting some great vibes. Yeah.” She glanced towards Shin, somehow still bubbling with excitement despite the bizarre welcome to her Starting Zone experience. “Ready to go?”
Hmm. “How about you two give it a go yourselves? It’d be a chance for the rest of us to investigate the rest of the village.” Cho seems unconvinced. Better use a bit of carrot. “Besides, I thought maybe the two of you might have more fun being by yourselves for a little while?”
“Oh. Oh!” The temporary elf’s eyes radiated thanks at Shin before she spun around to throw her arm over Bex’s shoulder. “Well then! Shall we find some herbs and a husband and some bees?”
“We shall!” Bex’s grin mirrored the other girl’s, her cheeks a bit flush as they started off. “We’ll be back soon! Don’t solve the whole mystery before we get back, deal?”
“Deal.” Shin couldn’t resist a small grin of his own, watching the metaphysically unlikely pair stroll off into the outskirts of the forest, intertwined. They were both good kids, and the thought of them truly finding one another was the sort of wholesome serendipity that seemed all-too rare in their petty little world.
It was nearly wholesome enough to make Shin forget how utterly upsetting every other aspect of their surroundings was. Almost, but not quite. Hanbun saw to that. “Hey Shin,” the kobold whispered, prodding him in the side with her elbow. “Check them out.”
Sure enough, the three villagers whose quests had been accepted were just silently standing in place, their eyes wide and unfocused as they waited for the Players to return with their news of their errands completed. They might have been mistaken for statues, if they weren’t still shivering. Ugh.
The man with the rat problem was in motion, however, marching off with such a steeled resolve that Shin couldn’t resist calling out. “Hey, where are you going?”
His response was immediate. “To find a shitload of bats.”
Uh. “You really don’t need to though?”
“You think I’m going to risk that?!” He whirled back on Shin, his face a mask of such cold fury that the Schemer took a step back. “Is it you who sees rats stuffing their faces with grain every time he closes his eyes, or me? Is it you who’s kept awake every single night with disgusting squeaks rattling through their brain, or me?” The man was all but snarling now. “Because I’m confused; is it you? Or is it me?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Shin was certain that he was precisely one wrong answer away from being murdered. “It’s you. Sorry.” The Schemer’s ears perked forward. “Maybe the bats will kill the rats? Maybe you won’t even need the Players.”
The villager grunted, his fury melting into a sort of vague scorn. “Where did you come from?”
“Shinki Itten?”
“Is everyone stupid in Shinki Itten?”
“I, uh, guess so.”
Finding that to be an acceptable reply, the man turned to continue his quest for a building’s worth of bats. But before he could, Mimasu spoke up. “Don’t you have to stop us, though?”
“Stop you?” The man narrowed his eyes. “Stop you from what.”
“Seeing the mayor?” The little scribe flipped back a few pages in his notes. “It’s right here. The whole town really didn’t want us to tell the mayor about your supply problems.”
The villager sneered. “I don’t care if you go see the mayor. Do whatever the hell you want. Just don’t get any funny ideas about the bats.” His eyes narrowed. “The bats are mine.”
Shin jumped in, waylaying whatever Mimasu’s response might have been. “No bats for us, all the bats for you. We promise. Alright?”
Wren whistled as the Shinki Itten contingent watched the villager stride off. “There goes the most determined man I’ve ever seen,” the grizzled elf remarked. “And he’s off to find bats.”
Mimasu chewed on the end of his quill, eyes troubled as glanced at the three still-silent townspeople. “Isn’t all of this weird, Shin?”
Hanbun cocked a single ear. “Well gosh, Mimi, what was your first hint?”
“I mean obviously it’s all weird,” the scribe huffed, seeming rather put out, “but aren’t Starting Zones supposed to be Scripted? The other Scripted people we’ve met didn’t act like this at all!”
True enough. The people of Brightly weren’t at all like the husks of Magica City, bouncing around their predetermined lives on the puppet strings the System provided for them. Those same strings were clearly attached to these townspeople, but rather than being led by them it was if they were ensnared by them.
And Shin suspected that much like an animal caught in a snare, somehow, someway, the villagers of Brightly were fully prepared to gnaw straight through themselves for the possibility of freedom.
Shin shook the thought away, his hair bristling in disquiet. “Alright, well, all of this business about the mayor has me curious, so maybe we should go and–?!”
A cold shock seized Shin’s chest as the kobold’s knees buckled, only the nearby foundational rock of Wren keeping him upright as he gripped the elf’s sleeve. The general balked, only to pause when he saw the stricken look on the other man’s face. “Shin, what’s wrong?” He flinched when Hanbun crumpled against him as well, both kobolds with ears fully folded and tails completely tucked. “What’s happening?!”
Shin didn’t know. He only knew that he was deeply sad, and it had left a gaping chasm in his chest, and that it was never going to be alright again.
…No, wait. It was alright again. Shin caught Hanbun’s eyes as the color began to creep back into their faces. “Did you feel–?”
“Yes,” Hanbun confirmed, confusion warring with embarrassment in her expression. “I have no idea what that was and I never want to feel it again.”
Shin didn’t have a clue, either. Was it something to do with this strangeness of Brightly? An attack from Glandem perhaps? Or maybe a corruption of the System itself, bleeding out from an obviously malfunctioning Starter Zone? All Shin knew was that he didn’t have an answer, and doubted he would find one any time soon.
“Hey guys!” Bex called out from up the path, smiling in complete ignorance of the kobolds’ shared moment of otherworldly depression. “Sorry, bit of a hold up, Cho’s dead.”
What. “What?”
“Yeah, she died.” Bex shrugged amiably, blissfully unaware that she was announcing the demise of her own goddess. “Splatted.”
“S-Splatted?” Shin stammered, half forgetting he was the only one who knew Cho’s true identity. “How the hell did she get splatted?!”
Bex waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, no big whoop. You get an Achievement for falling really far, and there was a ravine? So we figured she should just go ahead and crack that one out really quick.”
So, in other words, all your deity’s friends jumped off a bridge, and so she wanted to, too. Woof. At least that explained the brief bout of existential dread.
And even further more, it started to answer another concern Shin had been considering. If Cho died, but he felt fine now, she clearly didn’t die the way any normal citizen of Magica would. Had she really co-opted all of the privileges of the Players? “But she’s fine now?”
“Huh? Oh, sure!” Bex gestured towards the chat window she had opened. “We’re still chatting. She said it was great, but ‘the last part fell a bit flat’.” The girl chortled, shaking her head. “God she’s funny. You get it, right? Flat, because when she fell she got–”
“No no, I get it, super funny. But what I mean is, she’s coming back?”
“Of course! She’s got like five minutes on her Rez Timer. Want to go meet her at the graveyard?”
Hanbun perked up. “Right, I almost forgot. I think I could only see a part of the picture in the normal version of Brightly, but I suspect that the situation at the graveyard is wild.”
The idea that even after all of this anything could be declared ‘wild’ was, frankly, exhausting. But Shin knew it was a dangerous job when he took it. And who knew? Maybe upon taking a stroll through scenic Brightly he’d find the situation to be less insane than it seemed.
They hadn’t gotten far into the town square before Shin came to a definitive answer on the issue. In short, the entire village had clearly gone mad.
Wherever they went the villagers would turn up the dial on their background business as high as possible, chopping wood with extreme gusto and gossipping at a shouted volume and washing laundry far more loudly than Shin ever thought possible. And then, as soon as it became clear Bex was not going to stay in their general area, their frenzied pantomime immediately curdled into a sullen display of half-effort, going through the motions with such contempt and lack of effort that it was a wonder the System Itself didn’t reach out and smite them all dead.
The one exception was at what Shin recalled to be the mayor’s house. The mass of villagers gathered there did their best to project an air of nonchalance, chatting about this and that as they milled about in the front garden. But it didn’t escape Shin that their eyes never left Bex for one moment, not until she was well beyond reach of the mayor’s house and whatever calamity a Player might bring about there.
They nearly collided in the street with the rat-plagued villager, the man clutching a huge bag in one hand that floated in his grip like a balloon. Hundreds of little bodies thrashed against the side of the sack like the abdomen of some grotesque insect queen, the man forcing eye contact upon Shin before indicating the bag, and then indicating Bex, clearly asking for confirmation that he was good to go.
Go away, Shin attempted to wordlessly convey to the man, What you’re doing is absurd. You are absurd.
I understand completely, the man silently replied, his intent crystal clear in Shin’s mind. I’ll be back with more bats.
As strange as it seemed, the graveyard was actually the most pleasant part of town. It was certainly the most normal: just a tidy plot of land lined with tidy little headstones. Even the Watchmen guarding the place were normal, or at the very least they were in comparison to the other villagers. They alone projected an air of serving the purpose they had been sent to serve, of having been shaped to fit their container that was intended to hold them. Shin wasn’t entirely certain what that implied. Only that it had to be grim.
“Hold on a sec,” Hanbun held up a hand, beckoning the others closer. “If we stand still, I can get us all in my Camouflage ability.”
“Why do we need that?” Mimasu inquired. “Who are we hiding from?”
“We’re hiding from that,”–Hanbun jerked her thumb towards a faint shimmer that appeared in the middle of the graveyard–”Now shut up and watch, Mimi.”
The Banken tapped her claws together and a rush of leaves spun around the Shinki Itten contingent, temporarily disguising them all as a large bush as the graveyard shimmer began to take form. For a moment Shin thought that it might be Cho, and that Hanbun had been cautious for nothing. But she still had a few minutes on her timer, and there was no mistaking the mismatched features of a No One once they began to take shape.
“Freaking finally,” the RedPlayer grumbled, taking a moment to shake out his arms and legs as a Crimson Eye burned above his head. “Stupid friggin’ Rez Timer. So friggin’ long. So friggin’ dumb.”
“I could only see the first part of this back in the other Brightly,” Hanbun whispered to the group. “It just looked like Red Players would appear in the graveyard and then evaporate. I guess that was them being pulled into the Instanced version of the village?”
Seemed logical, but the Red Player was in no position to offer the final word on the matter. The two Watchmen had noticed him, and as they marched purposefully towards him the No One responded with as much dignity as he could manage. “Aw yeah, come get it!” he crowed, grabbing between his legs with both hands. “Come get some of this! You know you want it, you know–”
A sword pierced through the Red Player’s chest at the precise moment that a mace caved in his skull, and a moment later the Watchmen were contentedly back at their posts.Shin supposed it was true: if one loves what they do, they never work a day in their lives.
“That guy had on full Guild Starter Set gear,” Bex quietly mused, chewing on her lip. “Not just a weapon, like the last guy had. That’s a serious Royal Coin investment.”
“How serious?” Shin asked, recalling his encounter with Glandem. “One hundred and fifty Coins serious?”
“Not that much, no way. I think it’s twenty-five. But you’re usually splitting that cost between a whole guild.”
Hanbun pressed a finger to her lips. “Someone’s coming,” she hissed, flicking her ears towards the path leading out of the graveyard and away from the town. “This might be our Inside Man.”
Ah yes. The Inside Man. The key cog in this entire scheme. For as ingenious and multifaceted as Glandem’s efforts to turn Brightly into a staging ground for Red Players were, those efforts relied on his Inside Man.
Namely, a Player who was willing to spend a huge amount of time in Magica without doing anything even remotely resembling a game, spending all of their time in the same place as they stuffed corpses into Holding Satchels to hand off to unwitting newbies, all while being careful to never actually complete the quests they were on. What sort of person could put up with that level of nonsense?
Shin supposed that Glandem might have found some way to pay a Player in currency they could use in their own world, somehow. But simple greed didn’t feel like it was enough of an explanation. This wasn’t some purely mercenary act. There had to be some personal reason involved.
The approaching Player was a No One, unsurprisingly, but he was also just a normal Player. Shin understood that, obviously, he couldn’t be a Red Player and still play his part in the scheme? But it did rankle deeply that in the eyes of the System, this Player had done nothing wrong. That their world ultimately didn’t care about them was not a surprise to Shin, but that didn’t make such an obvious display of that fact still stung.
“Yes, I’m scooping up your bits right now,” the Player remarked to seemingly noone, The Watchmen didn’t pay him any mind as he pulled a Holding Satchel from his side, crouching down to begin the grim task of stuffing the fresh corpse into its depths. “If you want visual confirmation, dude, you can watch on my livestream like the form fucking said to do.” The No One spat, muttering to himself. “Fuckin’ time wasters. I fuckin’ swear.”
Time wasters?, Shin pondered, his ears starting to fold back. Why did that sound so familiar?
The Player continued his efforts unabated, even as he was seemingly peppered with further recriminations. “Yes. No. Definitely No. No and you’re an idiot for asking no.” He straightened up, holding the other Player’s crushed head by the hair and waggling it in front of him. “There, are you in the stream? Do you see that? Because this is a good look for you and you should remember it.”
A moment of silence passed as the No One listened to whatever the Red Player had to say, only for the man to respond with a scoff and roll of his eyes. “The stream isn’t down. You’re just trying to join the wrong one. How are you spelling the name, smart guy?” After a moment, the Player rolled his eyes even harder. “Not enough ‘Z’s, dummy. There’s one in Mazter, three in Azzz and two in Blazzter. I swear to God these fuckign people.”
Shin had only seen that name once, but he’d never forget reading it in the ruins of the Oaken Elf Camp and realizing its significance. Nor could he ever forget the man who had decided to dub himself MazterAzzzBlazzter, though he personally knew him under a different sobriquet.
Glandem had needed someone with a true grudge against the kobolds of Shinki Itten. Somehow, he’d found Leathers. Either Glandem was even better than Shin had thought, or the world hated Shin even more than he had thought.
Either way, his work was cut out for him.