Lupi’s Emporium! 1.1 hours until the cure deadline.

The gate outside the building creaked when uNmistAk3n swung it open.

He and the rest of The Empire’s Alchemists had been forced to evacuate the gala grounds after it was raided by gangs. At first, The Empire had planned on moving them to an Alchemy lab elsewhere. However, along the way, they learned that their supplies had been destroyed, bringing them to a standstill.

While they were waiting for The Empire’s management to formulate a solution, uNmistAk3n had received a message from the masked Alchemist who’d taught him about the Corrosites. The stranger had asked whether he’d developed a skin-based delivery method yet. How the stranger had figured he was attempting this, uNmistAk3n had not known, but he had indeed been trying - to no success.

"Well, I have developed it!" the masked Alchemist had replied. "Sneak over to these coordinates if you want to find out how it's done..."

And now uNmistAk3n was here.

Knocking on the door, he was received by a middle-aged NPC wearing a stained Alchemy apron.

“Big head...seems you are the one. I'm Anan. Come on in.”

The middle-aged NPC escorted him through a passageway, pointing out that the space had been air-sealed to prevent the smell of their operation diffusing out onto the street. Inside, they came to a space housing sixty or so NPC Alchemists in the middle of brewing potions. uNmistAk3n recognised the scent at once, having spent the day immersed in it.

Five of the ingredients on the benches had not been used by him, although their inclusion didn’t seem to be spoiling the new batches.

He was brought to a geriatric NPC with frizzy white hair and a bushy moustache, who was inspecting a 3-D projection of a moth wing at a higher-level magnification than had been available with the competition equipment.

“Tell me what you think of this.”

The geriatric NPC pulled out a vial of what was presumably the cure potion, although the solution's hue had changed to a plum and accompanying the silver Corrosites were minuscule particles that resembled tiny cubes of ginger. When the potion was tipped onto the moth specimen, in the projection, the Corrosites dug into the moth’s cells and began to destroy them. The ginger particles, attaching to the Corrosites, amplified the speed of destruction.

“It’s faster than what I managed,” said uNmistAk3n.

“It’s a hell of a lot faster,” corrected the old man, “but you can be forgiven considering you were working with dodgy information. Read this.” He patted a book lying open on his workbench.

uNmistAk3n picked it up and, from the first page, noticed an omission from the copy he’d been given. In line with the masked Alchemist’s earlier assertion, the cure potion was described as being Tier 3-2. Further reading revealed an entire chapter on the Corrosites, passages on the oral administration method, and several extra missing sections.

“Why?”

“The Empire altered it to delay the cure’s completion.”

A familiar figure appeared by uNmistAk3n’s side. His voice was deeper and his avatar had become that of a Sudanese guy, but the player was wearing the same sunglasses and breathing mask disguise.

The masked Alchemist answered the perplexity on uNmistAk3n’s face. “Politics, murder, the usual boring stuff. It’s been resolved, though, so don’t waste your brain cells thinking about it. Ete, I’m done.”

The masked Alchemist placed a stack of notes onto the geriatric Alchemist’s workbench, along with a handful of vials with a navy blue liquid in which were suspended marble-sized circles containing the plum-coloured cure solution.

The old Alchemist held a vial up to the light. “Marvellous. How on earth did you achieve that?”

“It’s all in the notes.”

uNmistAk3n, figuring this was the method for skin-based delivery, reached for a vial himself, only to have his hand slapped away.

“Not so fast,” said the masked Alchemist. “For you to learn the secret, you’ll have to agree to become this bag of bones’ apprentice. It’s not the worst deal in the world. He can teach you dozens of techniques unavailable to you in The Slums, and he’s got several incomplete recipes in the works that’ll make anything you’ve solved in the past seem like googling how to make cookie dough.”

Before uNmistAk3n could consider the offer, the masked Alchemist sent him a private message. ‘And once you grow beyond his tutelage, come join us at Flaming Sun, where you can study with experts astronomically more skilled than either of us. The guild has about 880 Alchemists. Can you guess my ranking?’

uNmistAk3n felt his heart skip a beat.

For most players in The Slums, this would have been a shocking offer, either due to the global awe inspired by Flaming Sun or the hatred stirred up for them by The Empire's propaganda. In uNmistAk3n’s case, though, the reaction came from neither of these. He'd never cared for the Slum's politics; he just participated in the competitions because he liked brewing. And discovering that there were players superior to this masked Alchemist, who operated at a depth of knowledge he’d never encountered, he felt as though the sky had split apart above him to reveal a second, higher sky.

‘What is it?’ he replied.

‘I wouldn’t even make the ranks; it’s a secondary class for me.’

Laughing, Henry saluted them both in farewell, turned, and left. He felt a small sense of satisfaction when, from behind him, he overheard the big-headed Alchemist ask Master Ete to accept him.

The time of the deadline.

The Headquarters of The Slum Empire.

In a command tent above which flew a flag with a driftwood crown, several dozen conspirators were gathered around a circular table, yelling back and forth about the latest news given to them by their assistants.

Ramiro was pacing around the tent, the butt of an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth, his right hand continually scratching his nose in a nervous tick.

What the hell had happened?

He’d logged off for little over an hour to have his dinner, and when he’d returned, his entire plan had been trashed. The dismantling of The Society had been foiled by the Ibanpita Church, who'd never before stepped out from behind their sacred walls to interfere in his designs. The gang members he’d spent months flipping to his side had been rounded up by them and executed or forced to delete their characters. Additionally, the gangs he’d sought to frame had exploited the chaos of the situation to plunder his warehouses.

Everything was ratfucked.

Someone had leaked their plans, obviously, but who? And why? It wasn’t the Dukes or Counts bickering around him; they’d passed his investigations. This left either one of the gang members acting as a double agent or the Volefan Scholar ‘Dr Iskander’ who was still evading capture by his forces.

Ramiro’s intuition told him that it was the latter, that Dr Iskander must have gone tattling to The Church. Spies had been stationed around the entrance gates to Central City to capture any suspicious Scholars, but there were alternative ways in, no doubt.

The question remained, though, how could either the Scholar or The Church have read his plans so accurately from a few modified notes? That was absurd.

Amongst the arguing conspirators was Head Scholar Enrique, the person who'd doctored the research notes.

Right now, this Scholar should have been basking in a hero's glory. Ramiro's plan had been to have Enrique 'discover' a mistake in the historical record, that the potion needed to be administered by mouth. With this, he could have stolen the title for solving the final cure, boosting his esteem among The Empire's Villagers. Following that, their Alchemists would've started producing the cure, but by then, it wouldn't have mattered, because The Society's core leadership would all be dead, allowing them to control the remainder.

Instead, though, Enrique was here, swearing in anger when another piece of news slapped him across his face. “Fuck! There’s the answer to the mystery buyer of The Company’s ingredient surplus. The Alchemy Guild is distributing a cure.”

“Does it work?” asked another conspirator.

“Even when applied to the skin.”

“To produce it already,” said Ramiro, muttering his thoughts out loud, “they must’ve begun brewing it in advance, meaning they've been coordinating with The Church. Wait a minute.”

He stopped pacing. Maybe it was wrong to view ‘Dr Iskander’ and The Church as separately as he had been. They could've been in cahoots before today, waiting for the opportunity to spoil his plans. Perhaps, engineering that opportunity - a trap.

He raised a Communication Stone to his mouth. “Find Dhaka_Sniper_1351 and bring her to me. This instant!”

“Uh...” the assistant on the other end hesitated, “...she’s already here with her friends, your grace. They want to speak with you.”

Ramiro frowned, the cigar slipping from his lips.

This timing...

“Bring her over, then!”

A minute later, a pretty Bengali girl poked her head through the entrance, greeting the conspirators with a friendly smile.

Following her in were her entourage of friends dressed in noob gear. One of them tapped the meeting table, listening out for a satisfying clunk. “That’s high-quality wood! Where’d you get it?”

The Arcanist he was talking to, ‘Duke’ Philip, mumbled that it was standard issue.

“You mean everyone’s got tables like this? Nice!”

Ramiro was studying the group’s carefree manner, trying his best to determine whether or not it was an act.

“What’s your connection with The Church?”

“The Church?” Dhaka Sniper blinked thrice, taking a second to comprehend the question. “No, none of us are Christian. Sanwar is Muslim, if that counts.”

An entourage member waved. “I am Sanwar! Indeed, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, we are people of the book, connected under one God.”

The answer made Ramiro shake. For him, an expert among experts, having to listen to this idiocy during this crisis was an extreme humiliation, as though his murderer had hired clowns to perform at his funeral.

He was being played with.

Squeezing his fists, he reminded himself that he had to maintain his composure. Before these noobs, he could not risk tarnishing the kindly public image he’d cultivated.

Right then, at the peak of his anger, a tired, feeble voice rang from the Bengali girl’s pocket. “Dhaka_Sniper_1351, hello? Were you able to get in touch with The King?”

The conspirators froze.

The girl pulled out her Communication Stone. “We have, Doc! He’s with us now. Speak to him!” She held the stone out to Ramiro like a karaoke mic.

“Hello, King Ramiro, are you there?”

The voice carried a blatant note of mockery.

“I am.”

“King Ramiro, tell me, have you prepared the potions for our client?”

“The Alchemy Guild has already taken care of the Earthfriends. They’re being cured while we speak.”

“Oh, is that so? How surprising!” The speaker clearly was not surprised in the slightest. “Still, I don’t believe the fulfilment of the contract was conditioned upon the eventual state of the Earthfriends. What did it say...one’s memory starts to fade at this age...oh, yes...15,000 functioning units are to be delivered to Dhaka_Sniper_1531 by 5.30 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time or the funds provided for the gala must be reimbursed.”

Ramiro faced away from the others, his chubby face twisting in pure hatred.

One had to know that, for all The Empire’s strength, they would not be able to renege on the contract, not with The Company acting as arbitrators. If they failed to pay, the gold would be taken by force.

He fumed. The fucking Church, The fucking Company, every move he took was hampered by these repressive arseholes. How unmanly it was that he must bow his head before another. He needed to gain power soon.

“Of course,” continued the mystery speaker. “It’s understandable if you can’t produce the order immediately. Who among us could have known that the curse would advance so fast, resulting in an attack that would lead to the destruction of your potion-making capabilities? However, I will remind you, King Ramiro, that, for each successive day you fail to deliver by, there is a late fee. How much was it, again? I can’t re—“

Ramiro stormed over and wrenched the Communication Stone out of Sniper’s hand.

“Who is this?!” he growled.

The stone was silent for a moment. No one in the room dared to speak, Sniper and her friends alarmed by Ramiro’s outburst, his subordinates not making a sound lest his rage be redirected to them.

“Wow. All this time we’ve known each other, and you’ve forgotten your old pal, Kizma Bhahfdsafsdnfsa.”

The surname came through muffled.

“What the fuck did you say?! Kizma what?!”

A conspirator, realising what was coming next, cringed.

“Kizma Butt. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA—”

Ramiro shattered the Communication Stone, showering him and everyone nearby with dust.

The Habitat.

In an empty dwelling, a figure disguised as an unremarkable noob was laughing.

Boy, oh, boy, Henry felt good. It was as though a loud, pesky toddler had been tossed out of the sandpit, leaving him free to build his castle without distraction.

Swapping his identity with The Ring, he left the dwelling, whistling a merry tune.

Outside, in The Habitat, Master Ete was standing on top of a grassy hill with an Earthfriend laid out face down on an altar before him. In front of them, six thousand unconscious patients were being arranged by Alchemy Guild members into tight columns and rows on the ground. Positioned face down as well, each had a stoppered vial of cure potion resting on their backs.

The Alchemists included the guild’s newest recruit, the guy with the big head. He was the first in a long line of talent who, following Henry’s plans, would defect from The Empire to join the Central City organisations over the coming weeks.

Henry merged with a crowd who’d gathered to watch the cure being administered. It was composed of the Earthfriends’ family members and new players, like himself, whose levelling had been delayed by the curse.

A young woman nearby grabbed her step-mother’s shaking hand and patted it. “Our Inseg will be right as rain, ma. The Alchemy Guild won’t let us down.”

Moving through the crowd, Henry overheard many murmurs expressing the same sentiment.

When the patients had been arranged, the crowd quieted down.

Master Ete began by grabbing the vial lying on the Earthfriend before him’s back. Thousands of chains of glowing miniature conical flasks grew out from it to connect with the vials positioned on the other patients. Lifting the one, he raised them all, his arm bulging and shaking as if he bore the collective weight.

As he removed the stopper and upended the vial, the navy blue liquid poured onto the patients’ backs. At once, the wing-shaped rash began to smoke while the skin underneath melted like plastic in a fire.