The hat was not particularly exquisite. It could be assembled by our hattiers not named Hatty. It was, to my profound satisfaction, a bucket hat. It conferred zero stat bonuses, but buffed my mood fishing by at least 15%. Maybe even 20%. I can’t see my stat sheet. I just know that a fisherman should wear a bucket hat, and that is the truth and the law. It didn’t have little fishing flies on the brim, but that’s probably too much for a freebie hat. You probably need to grind for a hat like that.
Just so happens, I’m geared to grind. I have enough worms to make an organic farmer happy, and the bloody-mindedness to sit in a chair and use them all. The lowest tier fishing rewards were pouches of rune bones. Under ordinary circumstances, you would be trading two orders for a small sum of rune bones- one order to go and buy decent quality worms from the resource site, and the other for the actual fishing minigame. Or you could save up for a chest of bones, but why would you do that when you could buy a special umbrella for your fishing chair?
Screw ordinary circumstances. This is what I sent Marci and the Judiths out for. I want an unreasonable quantity of worms. I want to spend so long fishing, I throw off the whole damned curve. Besides, the fishing minigame was really restful. Both times I used it, I slipped off into a sort of meditation or reverie. It really helped set me straight emotionally. And since that severely unpleasant nightmare left me in a mood, I could use some time down by the old fishing hole.
I’m a pretty optimistic person, but that messed me up. The unfairness of it. The whole… Benny. “The truth is, the game was rigged from the start.” Which I knew. I knew that. I’m playing a gacha game for God’s sake. Of course it’s unfair. There is no last level, there is only the current endgame content before the devs announce- sorry! We are going end-of-service now, and shutting down the game in a month. No refunds or returns. If you feel bad about all the time and money you sunk, just remember, you never owned the game. You only ever had a license to play it.
I nodded to the elder manning the fishing hole. He was asleep again, but given his painfully low personality rating, the difference was more stylistic than anything. It was just me, the worms and the fish out here. I settled into the chair, hooked a worm, and cast out over the pond. Then all that was left was adjusting my hat, and waiting.
I would clear Verton. And that… other place. Wastet or whatever. They would be added to my Sky Realm which would give me a big jump in food and trade, to say nothing of potential industry. I doubt it would bring the population I got from Gradden March or the sheer resources from Hidden Moon Mountain… actually, I needed to check on the Sky Realm. I had bought some improvements that should be finished by now.
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but where was my blip bleeping Purified Moon Forged Mithril? I don’t think I’m being unreasonable by expecting some kind of results at this point. Were they goldbricking? Did I have to start docking pay?
My bobber floated without the slightest concession to my grumpy mood. Insolence. Sheer, calculated insolence. When the boss broods grumpily, it is the minion’s duty to throw a colleague under the bus. Did this bobber have no ambition? Did it not realize that, simply by sacrificing some of his fellows who had trusted it and sharing the slander they so innocently spread, it could rule the bobbers like a king?
Never a motivated bootlicker when you need one. Awful. Just awful. I would have to put the whole tackle box on a performance improvement plan. That’ll put the fear of God into ‘em. The cicadas and crickets were making a racket too. They would also have to be counseled. Yes. Management counseling for everyone.
It was silly, but the notion of subjecting my fishing gear to the hell of office life was too fun. “Fishing line, where are your KPI’s? Where is your report on Wobblets and Gibbles? I don’t want excuses, I want results! Hook, when I tell you I want our core competencies synergized for maximum value generation across all stakeholder groups, you know damn well I want it proactively and in alignment with our Q3 targets! Reel… how’s your sister doing? Did she mention me? That’s great. You keep up the good work now. BAIT I SWEAR TO CHRIST YOU ARE GOING TO BE RIGHTSIZED INTO A NEW CAREER OPPORTUNITY SO DAMN FAST!”
The bobber dipped. I yanked a fish out, removed the hook from its mouth and dropped it in the bucket. Next worm on, and back in the water it went. Good looking fish. I was using the orange worms, not the basic red ones. You could see the difference in catches immediately.
“Get me Spiderman!” I barked, doing my best J Jonah Jameson impression. It wasn’t great. Simmons was legendary in that role. I mean, yeah, I still liked the Into the Spiderverse movies better, but he was still an absolute legend.
Some armored freak dressed like the devil blows up the wall of your office from the outside, comes flying in and wants a lead on your number one enemy. And you lie to his goddamn face to protect a freelancer, because he’s one of your people. Jameson was a prick, and often a bully, but he wasn’t a coward. He’d fight God if he thought God was wrong. Or thought it would sell papers. Either way.
But damn, those Into the Spiderverse movies. Especially the first one. The music- I’m not a rap guy outside of Samurai Champloo, but something about hearing Biggie as they were tagging up a hidden bit of subway. The difference in how the world feels when you go from the street to the roof. Never being far from someone even when you feel your most alone. That all connects.
Spiderman could only have been invented by a New Yorker. That dream of moving effortlessly between the skyscrapers, like Tarzan in the Jungle if he could make his own vines, that’s a New Yorker dream. A dream of flying above the gridlock and the subways. New York is a three dimensional city, but we always seem to move in two. Going up and down happens only in rigid little tubes of elevators and subways. What if you could just free yourself?
What if you stepped up to the ledge, felt how scared you were, and still took that leap of faith? What if you jumped off and fell into the sky? Having the guts to stake it all and accept not just a loss, but winning. Betting on yourself when you aren’t even sure what winning or losing really is but staying as you are is unendurable.
What’s Up Danger goes hard as hell, and I will fight you about it. I think mostly because that scene really makes me see the coward in me, and say “Why not you? What, exactly, is stopping you? Is that all it takes to make you accept a living death?”
The bobber jerked, and I hauled in another fish. Applied bait to the hook. Tossed it out again.
I would conquer Verton. I would be careful, deliberate, slow. I would run down every relationship line, investigate every clue. It was a mobile game. The RPG and simulation aspects just weren’t that deep. And once I had it integrated, then what? How does this help me reach my big goal- escape and revenge?
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Actually, I’d even just take ‘Escape” as long as I could liberate my Awakened. Whatever ‘escape’ meant for them, given their context. As they were, most of them simply could not function independently. They would literally starve to death if someone didn’t order them to eat.
Putting the cart before the eldritch horse there. I didn’t even have a plan for investigating how to break out of the system of the game. I could investigate and see if any of the other Tower Masters did, but I could imagine all the Elden Ring-esque “Jump in Hole” advice.
The only person with an even somewhat successful escape program was… Jim.
Crusher Jim. He could mimic polite language, and I sure wouldn’t call him stupid, but I truly don’t think he is sane. Everything is a problem to be solved with violence. Raising kids. Earning a stable income. Breaching the walls of reality. All problems to be punched and crushed.
I have to imagine he was like that before he got stolen away by interdimensional necromancers. Some monster of a man who saw the battlefield and finally felt at home for the first time in his life. Everything that gave other people PTSD or nightmares or trips to Nuremberg for a brief chat and a short drop, he thrived on.
My theory is that he finally understood the world the first time he beat someone to death. Nothing made sense, then standing over a dead man, his hands covered in blood, the world clicked into focus. But it didn’t last. So he tried again, and it worked again. Jim pursued a life that would rationally permit him a maximum amount of moments of lucidity.
After the fall of Gradden March, the necromancers got him and pruned away all the extra bits of his personality. He had to have left the army for some reason. He had all those kids with someone. He raised the money for that bar somehow. Snip, snip, snip.
What was left was the monster in the basement. The violent alpha male in a pack of preditors. A person smart enough to understand exactly the situation he was in, but not smart enough to think of alternatives to the violence that defined him. Sebastian went as close to insane as his prison would allow, trying to solve the puzzle of the place. Trying to outwit it. Jim was already crazy. He leaned into the systems of the world, and like any good exploiter, was pushing them to their limits.
Sebastian made serious improvements to his stealth. But Jim could bend reality.
It was clear who was on the right path. And it was clear that I wasn’t. I was on track to build a very solid run towards the endgame. The Econ Engine would be turning very soon, I had at least one rare resource to exploit, and when you add in the nighttime exploit, I could really crank out resources. But so what? What part of that got me out? Got any of us out?
Clearly our enemies were unfathomably powerful. Literally God Tier. Thanos would be beaten ragged and turned into a raid boss if he ran into the Devs. I’d have to really start breaking things just to be able to peek behind the curtains, and devs anywhere only have one solution to accounts that have been tampered with- delete and ban. And I know it won't just be death-with-extra-steps. These guys are big on recycling.
It’s one thing to say you needed the courage to jump. But you needed a basis for that confidence. Something to have faith in. What was mine? What was the thing I could be, or do, or exploit that justified answering the call of the void?
The bobber dipped and I pulled another fish out. I had a monstrous number of worms. I had lots and lots of time. So I sat and wrestled with it. I ran out of worms before I found my answer.
“Hey. Old Timer. Show me the Fish Points store.”
“Sure! Let’s see your catch.”
The old man didn’t look even vaguely surprised by the industrial fishing trawler worth of small pond fish that got dumped onto his table. I noticed that no matter how many fish I dumped, the heap never grew beyond a certain point. I was worried about losing points, but the numbers on the board kept shooting up, so I kept pouring.
“Wow! You are almost as good a fisherman as me! Keep up the good work, kiddo.”
“Haha. Die in a fire.”
“Eh?”
“What can I buy?”
“Oh! Why, just about anything you please, I reckon. Even our top of the line golden rod!
“What does the golden rod do?”
“It upgrades your bait by five times automatically! And it’s gold!”
“Oh boy. But you know what? I see there is a Jumbo Runed Bones Chest on here. Five Hundred Bones. That’s a lot.”
“Eh?”
“And the Devs, in what can only be described as a rookie mistake, didn’t cap the number of chests I can buy.”
“Eh?”
“Shame there aren’t any Frozen Diamonds on here, or other premium currency. But we do what we can with what we get.”
“Eh?”
“Trade all my fish points for Jumbo Runed Bones Chests, please.”
“Boy, are you sure? You could buy a Golden Rod. That’s a Golden Rod we are talking about!”
“It’s a real emotional struggle. I am immensely torn. Oh, the agony of being trapped between duty and put the goddamn chests in my magic sack you damned coffin dodger and be quick about it!”
It feels good to be rich. Oh, I know Truso is going to be walking off with all my money soon enough, but I have a strange feeling that Truso might just become a lifetime employee. Assuming that he’s not the rat, of course. Someone was a traitor. Or we could be in full whodunit mode and they are all traitors. I doubt it, but it’s possible.
The rule I heard, and I have no idea if this is true or not, is that if you need to find a spy or undercover cop or whatever, look for the person who is super energetic, helpful, and always wants to get into some trouble.
“Hello, fellow kids! I sure love doing cocaine hydrochloride in amounts exceeding five hundred milligrams. I seem to have forgotten my small, clear plastic bag of the Devil’s Dandruff at home. Can I buy some off you? Please state your full legal name and the amount you are selling in a loud, clear voice. I am terrible at remembering people.”
The problem was, all of the named NPC’s in Verton were pricks. Even the ‘nice’ one was mafia to the core. He was only nice if you weren’t paying attention. The other three ranged from prickly to actively hostile.
I sure love playing Find the Werewolf, yes I do. They all had motives, of varying degrees of persuasiveness, for going over to Ko’Ras. The merchant wanted trade to flow and would probably write off the loss of the city as just “the cost of doing business.” Once he shoved the sacks of bribe money off the ledger, anyway. The mayor clearly resented Genuda’s hegemony. Mr. Bacciato was even more bribable than Pastet the merchant, with an added garnish of wanting to keep his people safe.
And Truso, the Genuda Military Advisor?
At some point, you just get tired of losing. At some point, no matter how often you yell “Death to Traitors,” the despair gets to you, and you just give in. You say yes. You take the money, or the promises, or the whatever, and you open the doors for the monsters. It wouldn’t even take much. He would just have to withhold his troops at the right moment, and Ko’Ras would roll right through.
Only Genuda got to fire the cannon that could shut down an invasion coming up the river. Truso had been very clear on that. There was a ‘great chain’ that stopped river traffic, and the cannon reached a hundred yards past the chain. I hadn’t particularly noticed any other cannons on the walls, but it would be slightly insane to only have one. Even if Truso was going to betray the city, he couldn’t just wish away cannons without raising every kind of alarm.
Rigging those cannons to not fire, however, or to explode if they were fired- that was probably all too easy.
Well, my money is still on the Mayor, but we’d just have to see. Four orders left to work with. Screw it. I loaded three into the expedition launcher, and selected an… interesting… crew. Miyuki (naturally) Rikka, Othai, Versai, and in a move that was 1,000% guaranteed to severely piss off Truso, Radz.
Why Radz? Because screw not having artillery! I had my scouting covered, I had enough money to buy as many troops as I damn well wanted, and wagons to haul them around at speed. You know who else they could haul around at speed? Radz! So her whole slow movement speed issue was immediately made a non-issue. And if she could fire from the wagon, so much the better. I don’t know if she can, but she’s shooting a magic mortar made of light. Recoil appears to be a non-factor.
Why pick her over Pomoroi? Because I was saving Pomoroi for the other map, first of all, and second- Verton had lots of hills and ridges everywhere. Lots of stone walls. In other words, we didn’t have much line of sight. But Rikka could just pop smoke, and anywhere within a couple kilometers (or whatever it was) would catch a mortar descending directly onto their head. Simple as that.
I had roughly forty villages to evacuate, and I figured a non-zero number of them would have raiders attacking the evacuation. It would be a grind. Time to get to it. Because that was the other thing Jim proved- you didn’t need to spend money. The Grind was dangerous enough.