Part III – Love in the Time of Cripple

Morning of the next real-life day, Auckland, New Zealand, Flaming Sun HQ, the ninth floor to which elevator access was held only by members of The Company’s inner circle.

In a private conference room, eight bleary-eyed people, most in their early 20s, plus several dozen more connected remotely were listening to a dishevelled teenager in sweatpants rattle off a presentation at five-hundred words per minute.

"...the details of Oliver's investigations are unknown. However, for him to still be pursuing it, we can conclude that the skeletons in Ramiro's closet must be very sensational. My intuition, from my brief interaction with The Roaches while disguised as him, is cannibalism, torture, or child molestation. Maybe all three. I strongly advise against interfering with Oliver's work; the guy's obsessive enough to sniff out more than any of our..."

As Henry reeled off the recent happenings in Suchi, screens spat up slide after slide of his observations and postulations.

Between the three poles of Ramiro, The Pope, and himself were divvied a collage of minor characters like Oliver Spears, Archdeacon Mohon, Nerin, Kabit The Green, The Primordial Path cultists, and Loki. Overseeing them all was The Trickster God, whose presence passed between the factions with the rapid unpredictability of his global teleportation. His latest pranks—the moon-painting, cooking competition, and pope pantsing—were broken down according to dry, pernickety explanations of the Zone Guardian restrictions and Karnon's favoured methods for skirting around them.

Henry, dissecting himself as coldly as his enemies, presented his own thoughts, actions, and vulnerabilities. The full six phases of his tentatively cancelled plan—‘Late Fees. The Decline and Fall of The Slum Empire. Oliver Speared. Corporate restructuring. Legendary brainwashing bait. Good bloody game.’—had been laid out in full. A map for the bloody finale at the West Bank Autonomous Exclave illustrated the anticipated invasion of Ramiro's mind-slave horde and the steps of Henry’s assassination, both the original and Karnon’s prank-coded modification featuring Donkey Bro.

Henry'd begun with a default assumption that he was a higher priority target than the other two. Beyond his paranoia, this was based off a more rudimentary, pre-Suchi conception of himself as an agent of order and Karnon of chaos, two opposing forces who'd clashed in the past and would clash until the end of time. Consequently, he'd theorised points of vulnerability for him and their guild. Some of these were general and long-established, like disrupting their shipping routes or massacring their NPC subjects. Others were specific and new, like pressuring Henry into panic activating a Legendary Class, hijacking the monster army of wolves and rats, or offending The Wind Elementals.

The main suspected line of attack, in the present, was The Worker of The Loyal Heart speciality that Henry’d planned, during the ‘Legendary brainwashing bait’ step, to trick Ramiro into stealing to set up the assassination. (Digital Henry still considered this the main vulnerability). This gambit, had it failed, could have made Henry appear to be conspiring with the post-Oliver-Speared, exposed Ramiro who'd fallen from grace for his child cannibalism or whatever. The Tyrant toying with mass brainwashing was also problematic. Both scandals, without the pay-off, would have eroded the trust of NPC factions in The Company, fuelling support for their detractors.

It'd been a risky scheme when he'd first concocted it, prior to his realisation of Karnon trailing him. If he'd been more rational, if he'd not gotten swept up in the misery of Suchi, if he'd not so stubbornly insisted on shirking his greater global responsibilities, he shouldn't have started this. Now, with the additional interference of mischievous higher powers, the scheme was out-right suicidal. Logically, he should have cancelled it on day one, but, well, he was a human, he wasn't immune to the trap of investing too much of himself in lost endeavours.

The news he was sharing with his guild-mates would be inputted by into pre-existing response systems for mitigating the damage of Karnon. After being split across departments, the information would be processed through research and analysis similar to the ones he himself had conducted in The Overdream, although the extent would be limited because of Henry censoring his own involvement as The Tyrant. While his guild-mates were surprised by many of the revelations, the overall atmosphere remained calm. Nothing in Karnon’s behaviour—on first glance—seemed remarkably distinct from his past interactions with The Company and Suchi was the zone of least significance to their operations. Most of the inner circle were simply amused by their leader's plight. None of them would take this issue seriously.

Henry, although he would update them with any later discoveries he would have made without The Cap, would take no special measures beyond that to dispel their naivety. His presentation contained no hidden guidance from his digital investigations, and his tone was as emotionless as it’d been in the past.

(According to Digital Henry, they could do nothing to help him or themselves.)

“...That’s everything for now,” he finished up. “Read the notes for clarification. Unless one of you builds a flawless case suggesting otherwise, the plans have been retired, Suchi can stay rotten, I’m going back to winning the wager with Alex while tolerating my noob friends, then I’m peacing the hell out. You have 11 minutes for Q&A, after which these matters will be closed on my end. From there on, do not contact me unless it’s related to my personal involvement. I’ll be off-site today and tomorrow, with a bit of flying between then, so prepare to react on your own in an emergency. Clock's ticking. One at a time.”

Although his guildmates weren’t in a state of alarm, a few of them found it odd he would leave at this moment. Henry had, after all, been so paranoid that he’d lived 24/7 in their guild HQ to always be ready.

“Karnon isn’t a significant threat, then?” wondered an older gentleman.

“The blue blight is absolutely a threat," Henry replied in annoyance. "How often have I warned you guys against underestimating him? This is not me over-thinking the problem. Look beyond the facile joke veneer and recognise that the other Gods are terrified of him, his 'pranks' regularly have downstream effects that kill thousands, he cannot be caught, and no one can give a sensible explanation for his motives. That’s a threat. It's just not a threat to me because I’m retired. Next question, Nic.”

Their head of assassinations was hiding a smug grin. “You say retirement, but this scheme—”

“This scheme was me enjoying the freedom of retirement. If an ordinary person happens to witness an on-going murder on the street, helping without having to factor in the wider implications is a natural instinct and doesn’t at all indicate they've quit their day job to become batman. You know my prejudice against roleplayers. Boris?”

“Tier-8 already?”

“I have a Legendary that spoofs Civilian Class Miracles in exchange for massive quantities of gold.” Henry, in a false confession, gave The Cap of a Thousand Dream’s cover-story from Hannes; had he refused to sign up for Project Aevitas, the item would actually have downgraded into just that, the creations changed to NPC generics and his access and awareness of its lifespan-multiplying potential erased - in other words, made worthless. “No, I’m not lending it to anyone. Ben?”

None of the others found anything remarkable in his reply, the supreme cheat magnet having obtained many superficially superior items.

“Why would you feed King Torc’s cursed apple to a donkey?”

Henry paused a second, pretending to calculate whether sharing this embarrassing omission was necessary. “So, I was inspecting the mysterious thing, the donkey must have been hungry, and my reaction speed is—”

A torrent of laughter sprang up at the expense of the poor Cripple.

Henry lowered the volume on everyone’s mics. “And no, you can’t borrow the donkey - aside from the one-shot bite, he’s a useless, melodramatic coward. No, Diego, you can’t dissect him. One, he’s my mount; two, please wait for Saana III before experimenting with potentially-universe-consuming dark vacuum magic.”

An audible sigh came from the shadow leader of their Arcaneworker division.

A beaver-head physically in the conference room, who'd been holding up an acknowledged hand, spoke without being called. “How many martial arts have you learned?”

Henry glared at Alex. “We’re talking about Karnon, here, a separate issue from the recruitment tournament. Whatever styles I have invented and will continue to invent in the next week, it's not like I'll be emerging as a tool-wielding kung-fu artist to beat him up. You saw his fight with Nerin. He moves and thinks hundreds of times faster than any of us while casually tossing around baseball-tornadoes. My Martial Class, I should remind you, is still Tier-0. Nope, Karnon is a world boss, and you fight world bosses with the power of empires, not individuals, especially not individuals who have retired. Susanne, go. On topic, please.”

While Alex pumped his eyebrows in a pompous accusation, their Chief Alchemist asked what they would do with the unused materials for The Worker of The Loyal Heart conversion ritual.

Henry was undecided on this one. “For now, I’m leaving them at The Trading Posts as they come in. I've considered disposal, but we shouldn’t…you shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that the azure menace is omniscient. Don’t be shocked if anything gets exposed through his shapeshifted sleuthing, but also don’t act on that basis that it already has because that sloppiness might be what gives you away.” (Digital Henry had concluded that Karnon already knew this one).

“What if Karnon directs Ramiro or someone else to steal them?” the Chief Alchemist countered.

“He might, but I did take extra precautions. I ordered each package using different identities without making in-person visits, so he’d have to monitor our entire shipping system to figure that out.” (Possible). “In terms of the trade-offs, if the azure a-hole has deduced the formula, he should have no struggle acquiring replacement materials, which renders the destruction of mine pointless.” (True). “No, Asher, you can’t perform the ritual yourself. I repeat, Karnon luring members into accepting a Legendary Class is one of our main weaknesses. I will be enforcing…recommending, as an impartial third party, a guild-wide moratorium on Legendary Classes for a month. Any players who break the rules—and this includes myself and, especially, Alex—gets ejected and their character killed on the spot. No exceptions. But, yes, Susanne, you can have them when this over.”

The Chief Alchemist, who'd been inquiring in a roundabout effort to make that request, gave him a finger-heart.

(She wouldn't get them).

Oison, manager of their operations in Basindi for The God-Emperor’s promotion challenges, had his own essential request. “Can I have The Cloak of Wind and Stone?”

“Nope. That’s mine.”

“Bu—"

“Both cloaks are mine. Joel?”

An older gentleman coughed to clear his throat. “The—”

“Nope. No more gifts. Every single cheat I mentioned in the presentation is the totality of my arsenal, and I’m hoarding them for myself. As a retiree, I still reserve the right to be able to log in on occasion and admire my shiny tools. Hae-jin?”

The leader of their raiding division piped up. “We’re strug—”

“No. The Tunnel Rats are also cancelled. We’re not creating a Sentient monster army in the presence of an Earthfriend God with a background in befriending monsters. In fact, no Sentient monster armies, period. That was another dumb idea of mine, which we’ll chalk up to sleep deprivation. My departing gift to you all has now changed to something even more precious: the secret to how I collected an enviable mountain of booty."

Some held their breath, their minds igniting with daydreams of gold and glory. Others, seeing him covertly shield his mouth, knew it to be bait.

"I stopped being a lazy noob," he whispered. "You're all welcome. Oison, I swear that if this is about the cloak again, I will mute your mic for the remainder of the meeting.”

“I just thin—”

Muted.

“Nope. It’s not unfair. Back in my day, I acquired Legendaries with less than a hundredth of your resources. Get good. Elmer, you must have a relevant question, shoot it.”

“A comment, actually. Regarding Loki, he and Odin are close enough buddies that he'd never get kicked for an infraction this minor. I suspect he’s about to pull something. Watch your back.”

“Will do. Thanks." Henry, who had taken an infinitely more convoluted analytic path to reach that conclusion, sighed internally at his roadkill-tier social IQ.

After the briefing, he held a smaller meeting with Alex and that very last member to comment.

Elmer a.k.a. Fat %$%* a.k.a Pkunt, had been the leader of the Jakartan Bloodmancer platoon who during Operation Phantom Limbs in Saana II had co-ordinated the demolition of the world’s navies by summoning demons. Today, Pkunt managed their intelligence operations, a role that made him the third in The Company’s ruling triumvirate, The Tyrant's Shadow. He was also the other inner circle member aware of the network of NPC candidates they’d been grooming to succeed The Company at the conclusion of this instalment.

For that last reason, Henry met with the pair to discuss Karnon from this different angle. The Trickster God could have detected their network from his handing Archdeacon Mohon info to initiate The Church’s attack on The Empire (Karnon had). Consequently, he might ruin the network by exposing the agents (moderate likelihood) or weaponise them to rebel earlier (low likelihood in the present, rising with the years).

Henry additionally gave Alex a stern warning against collaborating with Karnon to destroy The Company in another underhanded ploy to impede his retirement by creating a mess for him to clean up (surprisingly low likelihood). If their guild were to go up in flames, regardless of the arson’s identity, Henry, who’d recently adopted the ancient retiree philosophy of Wu-Wei, would watch from blaze to ashes with nothing but a stick and a packet of marshmallows. The two of them were on their own.

Following that, he made his exit from the 9th floor to his apartment through a secret stairwell, a route that'd preserved his anonymity while their employees mistook him for Alex's deadbeat cousin.

For today—real-life today—Henry'd scheduled a short trip to Australia with his grandmother. The university she'd made him apply to had been so impressed with the non-Saana academic climbs she'd snuck into his resume that the head of their English department had immediately contacted him. Apparently, they were going to hold a personal tour of their facilities for another promising student in the 2051 intake, and Henry'd been invited to join last minute, the uni buying him plane tickets. He'd naturally been opposed to this idea—not due to Saana; the weekly play-time quota meant he couldn't be logged on 24/7 anyway—but because visiting the campus was pointless given his plans to have a doppelganger attend his classes while he globe-trotted with his forthcoming gold-digger girlfriend. Alas, his grandmother, who'd made sure to be tagged in his e-mails, had accepted the offer on his behalf, after which she'd been crying rubbish about family honour and stress-induced heart palpitations.

But, in the end, it'd been for entirely selfish reasons that Henry'd caved. Exiting the game this morning, he'd savoured the offer for an excuse to escape his guild and clear his head. From those meetings alone, he was already feeling exhausted having to maintain the charade juggling Digital Henry's conclusions about what was in store for them with what he, the Fleshbag, should know. Much more of this duplicity, and he might crack like Karnon (also surprising, very low likelihood).

While preparing for the flight in his apartment, he had Caramel escort him to talk one-on-one about issues specific to Suchi.

Their final order of business was moving forward the executions of Senior Director Okai Van and the other conspirators in the arms smuggling ring. The confessions necessary to make charges against The Empire for their involvement had already been procured from the Senior Director, who’d coughed up everything in exchange for mercy and protection for his family. His execution had been delayed to create ambiguity about The Company’s intentions and avoid alarming The Empire until Henry’s scheme had been completed. However, this need for secrecy had been rendered moot by Henry’s scheme being scrapped and Ramiro identifying him as The Tyrant, which would prompt The Empire to believe that The Company was already committed to dismantling them. Thus, there was little to gain from dragging the situation out, from continuing to hold the conspirators in the purgatory of awaiting their pardon or death.

“You'll attend?” Caramel was using his bathroom toilet for a chair while reading a screen that Henry’d installed for emergencies.

He answered from the shower, where he was soaping off the night’s sweat. “If you can schedule it around mid-afternoon or between 7 and 9.”

Whenever possible, he liked to watch executions in person. He took no pleasure in it. Rather, he felt the discomfort helped him to stay grounded, to retain a sense of the individuals churned up by his rules and regulations. At another level, there was an element of mutual respect. If someone were going to do him in, he’d prefer for them not to cower but to look him in the eyes and remember what he'd been.

He could never decide if that was a psychotic decision. This odd situation, balancing the real and unreal aspects of the game and the bizarre liminal space between them, had been too unique for him to follow the example of any others.

“Don’t inform anyone until the last moment,” he continued. “We'll finish it fast, keep the spectators small, no public notice, no family, no Church officials.”

“Okai is Ibangua; Berbahaya won’t be happy with us skipping the rites.”

“I'm ordained to give them on our grounds. From Nerin's Trials. Either way, it’s more critical we avoid clueing Karnon off since he could cause a scene.” (Likelihood unknown).

Caramel was confused. “Why?”

“The arms smuggler, Merchant Ga of Clan Lis, is Togavian, one of his azure-haired descendants.”

Henry, Caramel’s knowledge being limited to Suchi, gave a brief summary of Karnon’s past, along with the fact that the distinctive hair colouration and alabaster skin of the God’s people was inherited entirely from himself, the pre-Maelstrom Togavians being swarthy blondes. For all they knew, the Merchant could be one of Karnon’s bastard children. (No. Too short.)

While he wafted on, Caramel glanced at the fogged-up shower glass, onto which was being cast the fluctuating illumination of screens, Henry assiduously devouring the minutia of the moment with no less fanaticism than the maps before their battles.

“Retired, eh?" she teased.

"It’s only for another week." He sighed, and the light show in the shower abruptly stopped. “Let's finish there. Enter the clown.”

The next instant, the bathroom door swung open as a beaver-head barged in with the gluttonous flair of an overweight trucker at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

In his arms, Alex was carrying a travel bag that rustled with snacks stolen from the pantry. “Henry, my bosom brother, should I be packing a suit for cold or warm weather?”