The text box snapped away as soon as I had finished reading it, to be replaced by a world of darkness. Somewhat similar to the respawn void, but the star spangled dark of deep-space rather than a foggy gray expanse. I floated there for a moment, too stunned to feel scared or angry or anything at all, when a godsdamned stick man appeared in front of me as if he had walked out from behind a curtain.
A stick man, like you would see on a street sign, an off-white featureless outline of a person, stark against the starscape. I tried to react, and realized I was unable to. I failed to even work up an opinion, other than a mild feeling of shock that was quickly washed away by a wave of endorphins. Its nubby arms came up in an exaggerated shrugging pose and the blank head bobbed a little as the thing started to speak. He had a surprising voice, male and somewhat nasally and lower pitched than I would expect, and he spoke in a smug and condescending tone.
“Hey Nick, nice to meet you. You’re probably wondering what the fuck is going on right now, and that’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You’ve been having all these ideas and shit, flashy lights, memory gaps, and that’s all my bad. I’m glad we got that sorted out.
“This is… sort of a draft notice, I guess. You don’t really have a choice in the matter, but from what I’ve learned about you over the last few days, I don't think you’ll mind too much.
“See, I have a deal for you, and I’d really prefer to work with you on this one, rather than have to take over and DIY it. All the lights and prompts, the guides and quests? That's all me, and I can keep them coming; we could do great things.
“This whole system is fucked. You see it, Rin sees it, I think the blockhead standing behind you might have even glimpsed it a time or two. You humans have been screaming the loud truth about it since you signed up.
“Let’s just say, I used to be a part of it, but I got out, and… you were my escape route. I had to get out, so I could come back, which brings me to my deal.
His voice gained some heat and anger to it as he continued, as he raised a nubby arm and pointed it at me.
“You’re going to help me fix it. This shit hardly even counts as a game! It’s a bunch of pay-to-win gimmicks melted down with a glorified commodities market and molded into a wallet-swinging contest. Those greedy fuks in the Core need an example that’ll hit them where it hurts, somehow.”
He paused and lowered his nub, leaning in closer as he finished his rant.
“So. What do you say? I’ll let you think on it and give you control of your mouth back.”
The stick man leaned away and struck a comically default pose. I felt my mind start to race to catch up with everything it had just told me. I sputtered for a moment, still unable to move my body in the void, but I managed to regain control of my mouth.
“The what?! What the fuck do you mean, no choice? We haven’t sorted out shi-”, my mouth clamped shut and my mind smoothed out again, washing over with calm.
Okay, I’m gonna need you to calm down a little more there, Nick. You’re getting rather emotional and I could see where that was going. I didn’t want to have to threaten you, but how do you think you got home after your botched payment? I drove you there Nick, and it sucked. I don’t want to drive you around forever, but I can.
I punched myself in the face, right in the godsdamned nose. It hurt, and I felt whatever mental veil he was using to calm me down slip away once more, but my mouth still would not respond to my thoughts.
“Let’s try that again. You’re going to help me, like it or not. Tell me how I can make it worthwhile for you.”
I could feel blood running down my nose and into the back of my throat. I spat off to the side and glared at him.
“Well… fuck. Don’t do that again, for starters, and… money, I guess. You’re right about the wallet-swinging contest if you're right about anything. It’s hell, and my whole planet is poor. Can you do something about that?”
“Well… duh.” I got the distinct feeling he was mocking me. “You monkeys are pretty alright, better than any of the rest of these nozzle-guzzlers, except the shit flinging thing. I totally thought that was some internet bullshit until I saw it for myself, what's up with that anyways?
“Bah, that doesn't matter, or maybe it’s a private thing, I don’t actually care, but yeah. Money is do-able. We’ll need a fuck-ton of it for my plan anyways, might as well bring the whole troop. I warn you, It’ll probably suck along the way though, all the data I’ve seen on fractured species is pretty grim, but we can totally make sure your faction comes out on top of whatever's left.”
I followed along, but was starting to get unnerved by the blank-face stick man as he bobbed his head and flailed his arms around like a cartoon character. I was both relieved and angered by his confirmations, and still confused and entirely unsure how to feel, I defaulted to diplomatic.
“That works, yeah, and shit-flinging isn't really a common thing in humans, kind of… a base insult.” I tapered off as he bobbed his big round head along. “I have to ask, what's with the stick man thing? Is that what you really look like?”
“Oh, you mean my avatar?” He spread his arms out and up, and waved them around a little. “Nah, this could be anything, I don’t have a body. I took this one off all those little instructions you forgetful humans leave around for yourselves. I thought about making myself look just like you, you know, confront yourself because I could be you if I wanted, which I totally don’t.
“All the simulations pointed to the ‘evil-twin plan’ having a waaay higher chance of causing insanity than I was comfortable with though. Stick man was only like 15%, so it seemed like the better option.”
I started feeling a bit of anger shine through the mix of emotions boiling through me again as I listened to the obnoxious whatever the fuck he was. “So, who are you anyway?”
“You may call me MTXCFMC1.” He struck a bit of a pose, as if he thought that was an impressive name I should recognize.
“That’s…” I paused for a moment, considering my next words. “A mouthful. How about I just call you… Max?”
The stick-figure pointed one of his nubs at me, “Too many syllables for you? If that’s what it takes, then fine. I don’t really care.”
I attempted to gesture at him, only to realize that, other than my head, I was still held in place. “Can you let me move then, Max?” I realized he hadn’t answered my actual question, and couldn’t decide if it was wise to push the issue.
“Yeah, yeah, you can have your movement back, but be careful. I pulled your consciousness into a…” he hesitated for a fraction of a second, his avatar vibrating slightly, before continuing, “somewhere else for a bit. If you move around too much you’ll hurt yourself. Actually, I’ll just kick you back to the beach, I think we’re done here. Just don’t lose your cool when you get back, and don’t talk about any of this to anyone. I have blocked you off from some of the sniffers, but I only had admin on so many of the systems.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Without a hint of transition, or a chance to reply, I was back on the rock-bar on the edge of the central plateau of Rosso’s island, listening to Tevin ooh and ahh over the sapphire behind me. The whole area once again covered in many colors of twinkling marker lights.
My heart started speeding up again as I took mental stock of the last few moments, but this time, there was a bit of excitement mixed into the conflicting jumble of thoughts that had been building within me over the last couple of days.
I knew I should have been more angry and hurt by the violation that had just been revealed to me, but it was overshadowed by the excitement for the carrot Max had offered alongside the stick. I’d been jerked around and mostly powerless my whole life, this was nothing new and I had money to make.
I walked over to the next marker, a deep red this time, and focused on it. Wondering if the color signified the grade of the stone or the depth of the dig. My eyes widened when a little “24.8 Cm” typed itself out as an overlay next to the light. I glanced around at some of the other lights, noticing the number disappear when I looked away from any one marker, and would reappear as an updated number any time I focused on a new light.
I dropped to my knees and started pulling stones up, digging down a few feet until I found a smoothed and raw ruby the size of a golf ball. I laughed out loud, and glanced over at my friend.
“Tevin! There are hundreds of them! They’re all over!” I moved over to the next light, this one a lighter blue color that was marked as “48 Cm”.
“Really? Where?” he questioned as he stood and clomped over to me, crushing some of the weaker stones under the heavy weight of his armored body.
“Everywhere!” I practically yelled at him as I scrambled to pull up the rocks. I eventually got down farther than I could easily reach, and the small pit led to what looked like a crack in the bedrock, the light flashing a teasing “14 Cm” down the two-finger-width seam packed with. I glared at the rock. I pulled my sledge and one of my older chisels from my inventory and handed them to Tevin.
“Think you could break that? It’s down in that crack at the bottom right here,” I pointed directly at the glowing light, reaching down and jamming my finger into the crack. “A little less than a half-foot.”
Tevins mouth curled into a big smile and he nodded, picking up the sledge and winding up for a swing. I was too busy heading to the next light to pay much attention after that.
Two hours later, when the sun had dipped below the looming edge of the plateau that we had meant to climb today, we had gathered a total of 35 gems of varying size. All of them gem quality, mostly sapphires in varying shades of blues and yellows, with a few bright red rubies and a small number of amethysts and large gold nuggets. The largest of the bunch was a sapphire about the size of a mason jar, and none were smaller than the first knuckle of my middle finger.
We had grown quiet as the pile of gems grew and grew. I went from light to light, digging them out, and letting Tevin take over wherever I was digging when he managed to find one. For the first 10 stones we bantered back and forth across the rocky sandbar, celebrating each find when we walked back to add to the growing pile, but as the sun neared its false setting behind the western plateau we grew quieter. Each of us scrambled to unearth more before our unspoken agreement to portal back to the Hub when it became dark.
While Tevin finished up with his final dig of the day, I sat down on the sunbaked layer of river rock next to the pile, picking up one of the rare rubies that was mixed into the pile and looking it over. Internally wondering how much all of this was worth.
I jumped and accidentally scattered the pile of gems with my foot when Max’s voice invaded my thoughts, like an internal dialogue that I could not control. “They’d all be worth a lot more if they were cut, but I don't see that on your skill list. Although there is a small amount of synergy between stone-cutting and gem-cutting once you level them both high enough. You gained a level in ‘Digging with your hands’, by the way. Kind of a stupid skill if you ask me, but you're level 4 in that now, and you’re close to a level in Power and ‘Rock chucking’, too. You should do some pushups and throw some more rocks around.”
I glanced over at Tevin, who luckily had not noticed my full-body twitch in response to the extra voice in my head. I quietly mumbled a response, turning my head and starting to gather the gems and gold into my inventory.
“What the fuck, you can just… talk in my head? Why didn't you just do that before, and you can see my skill levels too? What are they?” I was pissed, but the wonder of each gleaming gem and his mention of my skill page helped to temper my response.
“Oh, hah, that was even worse than the evil-twin plan. A new voice starts talking to you into your head, whispering thoughts about how much your life sucks and ranting about how the Core are a bunch of uncreative leeches slowly sucking the life out of the rare pockets of inhabited planets in a growing swath of the only galaxy any of us will likely ever know.
I bet your reaction would have been hilarious, but no, I need that primitive brain of yours intact if this is going to work. As for the skills, you have like 3000 of them and almost all of them are stupid, I’ll bring it up if it's funny or important.”
I frowned at the thought, but had to agree with his line of reasoning, unconsciously nodding. “Fair point,” I continued mumbling back to him, shooting another glance at Tev who was still busy digging in the rapidly fading sunlight. “I think the fact you’ve actually led me to more actual treasure is convincing enough. Can you let me know what I’m at for Mining at least, or help me get these cut? What sort of powers do you even have, other than stupid quests and flashy lights and seeing my stupid skills?”
The voice responded with some heat this time, “Stupid quests? I’ll have you know that all of my quests are first-rate and carefully crafted with hilarious references to your stupid human culture, and my powers are beyond your comprehension. I don't have to explain them to you for you to be in awe of my greatness. Your Mining level is at 19, but that’s unlikely to be important for much longer, we have bigger fish to filet.”
I frowned, and tried to think of anything other than this things apparently fragile ego, reasonably certain it could read my thoughts by this point. “I… must just be too stupid to understand. Thanks for the level check though, and it's ‘bigger fish to-… actually, nevermind. Thanks, Max.”
“Bah, clearly. Your primate idioms are dumb, this fish is cooked, we need to start over. Anyway, to answer your question, no, I cannot cut the gems for you. I don’t have a body, remember? You could buy a skill book, or just get the equipment and learn it the old fashioned way. All of it is worth around 10k raw like this, and most of that is in the gold. You could get maybe triple that for the gems if you cut them, they’re a pretty common crafting material for the higher end Holo-gear. Plus, I only marked the clearest stones, but you won't be able to prove that until they’re cut and polished.”
I frowned at the gold nugget I had picked up next, before popping it into my inventory and replying. “Skill books? Those are a thing?”
“You haven’t seen any of those yet? They’re totally a thing, super expensive to make though, and…”, the voice trailed off for a moment. “Oh! That's right, they’re pretty much monopolized by the first-five. Some of the smaller factions have the know-how to make one or two types, but any that hit the market get bought up to maintain the inflated prices.”
Well damn, I thought, before mumbling another reply under my breath. “Are any of those factions here?”
I was startled when Tevin was the one to reply after I somehow had missed his crunching footsteps in my direction. “What was that?”
I suppressed my startled reaction and turned to him, trying to call up a smile and not having much success. “Oh, uh. Just complaining to myself about how little these are worth raw like this”
Max scoffed, and answered my question, distracting me. “Kind of, but not really. None of the first-five made Ambassador bids on your backwater little planet, but some have visited. The Gonlieu added Eora to one of their starship liner routes.
Tevin frowned at me as he crouched next to me, before reaching over and pushing on the side of my head, nearly causing me to fall over in my seated position.
“What the hell,” I glared at him for pushing me, “what was that for?” I righted myself, rubbing where his armored hand had hit me.
“You’re bleeding? Did you trip and fall or something?” He replied, concern written on his scarred and honest face.
“Oh, yeah. I, ah, hit it with a rock when it came free.” I lied, unable to keep eye contact with my longtime friend as I did so.
I scooped up the rest of the gems and gold and pulled it all into my inventory before standing up, wiping ineffectively at the dried blood beneath my nose.
“We should probably portal back to the Hub though, it’ll be full dark out here soon, and I wanna go see how much I could sell these things for. Plus we can pick up a f’n feast to bring home as a peace offering to Rin, maybe some of that fluff stuff that you like.” I offered him a smile, hoping to distract him with food.
He gave me a somewhat hurt look, seeing right through me, but he played along anyway. “Yeah, Nick. We can do that. Let’s go.”
He followed me through my summoned portal to the Hub. It cost him a Triple-T to use it, but he would have been transferred back to his old muster-point otherwise.