PART THIRTY-SIX

Total Mana: 54,000

Dungeon Tiles: 7,350

MPD: 165

Channel Views: 56,000

Twitter Followers: 90,000

Total BV Income: 15 USD

The next day, I logged in after a garbage day at work and found a whole crowd milling around outside the dungeon. Almost all of them were eating chicken burgers. I made a beeline for Konstantin.

"Special K," I said, "What's the what?"

"The what," he said, "is that the dungeon is broken."

"Huh?"

"About an hour ago all the games and rides stopped working and all the signs vanished and reappeared at the entrance. The guests were surprised but so far they've taken it well. I tried to persuade them to leave but most insisted on staying. They seem to think there will be something of a show. Some ran home to get friends."

"A show?"

"That's what they keep saying."

"One moment," I said. I went into the entrance and had a little chat with 386.

He told me that things were fine. "I need everybody out," he explained, "for the printing press."

That ran a very distant bell. "Press? What? What about the movie?"

"Don't panic. We have time. Hark! Lord Thomas and his men approach."

"Hark?" Behind me came a rumble. The crowd of kicked-out guests moved aside. 6 of LT's men put down a stream of logs, then gathered round a series of heavy-looking wooden crates. They lifted the first crate and slammed it down onto the logs, ready to roll it into the dungeon.

"Mister Bain," said LT. "I've brought the press. I understand we need to bring it inside so that he might publish the mana readings he promised."

"When did this conversation happen?"

"Two days ago. You said you were paying attention but you kept sighing."

I shrugged. None of this was interesting to me. "Well, roll it inside I guess. Quickly, though, we have a movie to watch." 386 spoke to me. "Oh, hold up. The dungeon has to reset real quick."

The mouth to the dungeon vanished for five seconds. When it came back, there was a long downwards slope covered in ice, at the bottom of which was an enormous pool of molten lava.

"Bombs away!" I called, but the men didn't move. "Come on, there's even a slope now. Just get it on the end and push. Come on!" I said, my voice rising. But still they didn't move.

Lord Thomas was pinching his nose with an air of despair. "You want to melt my press? Do you know how expensive this was? How hard it was to acquire?"

"Bain?" The Swords had arrived. "Why is the dungeon a volcano?"

"You guys are strong, right? Can you lift those crates onto those logs and roll them onto the ice slide?"

The four beefy boys looked at the crates, at me, and at each other. Ben cracked a smile. "Never a dull moment."

"Boys only? You think I can't lift a little box?" said Valentine. She'd crept up behind me. She was dressed more conservatively than yesterday. I suppose my face registered disappointment. "It's not the premiere any more, is it? Right, boys. We've got a manual labor quest. Just like the old days."

The five warriors had sufficient strength to lift one crate each. They bypassed the logs and simply slid the crates down into Mount Doom, where they were swallowed by the lava. The crates didn't even leave little bubbles or anything. They were just gone.

I slapped my hands up and down as though I'd helped. "Excellent! Now we can get on with our lives. What've you got there, Polks?"

Circe Polka Jr. was holding one of those glass lantern holders, but it was filled with water. As I approached him I spotted a little orange thing inside. "Goldfish," he said. "A gift. But..."

"Ace!" I grabbed it and went to the volcano entrance and flung the poor little goldfish to its death. "Right, everyone stand back."

The volcano closed up, and five seconds later the dungeon entrance returned. "In we go!" The locals burst into applause. They had, as they'd suspected, been treated to a show.

Valentine whispered something to Lord Thomas, and he - reluctantly - followed everyone else as they streamed back inside.

I paused at an aquarium. There were dozens of little goldfish swimming round. Polka cracked a smile - the first non-sinister smile I'd ever seen from him. Even LT seemed pleased, momentarily. His face fell. "Will the printing press be in an aquarium, too?"

Nerves of Steel, part 2

The structure of the movie was unexpected. It was only about halfway through that Ted Steel became a spy. I kept thinking that scene X and character Y didn't need to be in the story, but it all paid off in the end. Maybe we could have lost one of the tennis matches. There were plenty of twists that I didn't see coming, and some that I did. The amount of action really ramped up towards the big finale, which was a kind of headlong rush to death or glory. They showed Ted Steel's health and stamina bars sometimes, giving it a slight RPG feel. CinemRPG, perhaps?

And, of course, Konstantin was in it as a minor ally to Ted Steel. 386 paused the movie when he first appeared, forcing him to stand and take a bow while we whooped and cheered. Polka even gave him a hearty slap on the back.

When it was over, the humans clapped and cheered. My hour was fast running out, so there was no chance to debrief with the others.

386 spoke to me and summoned something into my hand. "Lord Thomas, I have to go now. But here's a little present for you." He took it. It was a piece of paper divided into neat rows and columns, each containing a number.

"The corrections to my data!" he said. "Amazing. So the printing press is... it's here? It works?"

"Works great. Now why don't you bring the rest of your data and 386 can correct it? And we'll start getting you stats from around the world. Just one thing - paper's expensive. We can't afford to print everything on our own dime. Bring paper. And ink. Good? Swords - let's get on the blower tomorrow and talk about that movie. Yeah? 386, remember I tried to explain micro-blogging to you? Can I talk about this? I mean, if I mention the movie NOW they'll know I'm the guy behind all the leaks."

"They surely already know."

"You think?"

"You're not subtle."

"Not subtle? Says the guy who turned into a huge volcano to destroy a tiny block of metal!" But I'd already been portalled out of the game.

A Perfect Tweetstorm

@BVleaks

11:06 ThetanSoft. What can I say? I've just seen their next product. Wow. #gamechanger

[stock photo of the sun coming up over the ocean. I wasn't feeling very inspired.]

11:14 Still thinking about it. Wow. All I can say is wow. It's so good I don't even want to leak about it. #worththewait

11:15 I'm not sure how long I can be this restrained. I'M BURSTING.

I slammed my laptop closed before I typed something I'd regret. So far on BVLeaks I'd been cold and calculating. First to rustle up some followers through intrigue and hints, then to direct them to my channel. Now, though, I just wanted to tell the world! I decided to go for a little late night walk. Get some fresh air.

On the way out, my phone rang. The little flip phone ThetanSoft had sent me.

"Bain residence, the man of the house speaking."

"Billy-Bob, it's Thomas."

"Oh. Sup, fam?"

"Release date is the 15th of next month. 4,000 screens US. Simultaneous worldwide. Not on streaming for 6 months, then it'll be exclusively available through our sites and apps."

"Holy crab! Are you serious? Four THOUSAND. That's a lot."

"That's a lot."

"Not much time for marketing."

"Word of mouth is all we need."

"Good luck with that," I said.

"Perhaps you'd like to help."

"You want me to tell my friends about it? Joke's on you. I ain't got none."

"Maybe you have a Twitter account."

"Oh."

"Oh indeed."

"What's the going rate for sponsored content these days?"

"I believe people are being paid in webcams."

"Right." So I wasn't going to get any extra cash. I thought things through. An increase in BetterVerse fans could only boost my channel. A rising tide lifts all boats. And I wanted to tell people about this movie anyway, and the inevitable disruption that would follow. "4,000 screens. That's way too many." He remained silent. "You already know it's going to be huge, don't you? How can you know that?"

"Goodbye, Billy-Bob. Actually, one last thing. Have you seen a video creator called 3B? We all love him here. Very... aspirational content. Some people think he might tone down the gore... It doesn't represent the product very well. Anyway, he's starting to get attention from other players. Not all attention is good."

He was trying to warn me about something. That was kind of him. "Ten-four, good buddy. Reading you loud and clear. I don't plan to do anything that'll annoy the other players, though. Bye."

How to Annoy Your Fellow Gamers in 10 Easy Steps

I spent an hour looking up search terms like 'how to short sell a company' and 'how to short sell a company when you are flat broke', a rabbit hole which ended with me watching clips of Margot Robbie explain high finance from a bathtub. I say clips, but it was one clip on a loop. Don't judge me till you've walked a mile in my shoes, aight?

With no chance to make money from the imminent collapse in the share prices of Disney and Netflix, I pressed publish on my latest video.

There's no need to describe the whole thing in detail, especially because it was by far my longest one. The others had been 2 to 7 minutes long. This was 20.

I was in a different outfit. The magician get up? Out. Rapper bling? All the way in. On my head: a bulbous red velvet crown covered with gold detailing, encrusted with jewels. Body: a modest white silk robe that you could barely see under a mass of heavy gold and silver chains. Arms: golden bracelets. Hands: a massive golden seal ring on every finger. Feet: arabian genie shoes, gold, curled up at the toes, every available inch covered with tiny rubies. Accessory: a sceptre. Long, gold shaft, topped by golden threads clinging onto a diamond as big as a rat.

"Yo yo, welcome to my channel! 4B here, and the extra B is for Bling. I'm blinging it. I'm bringing the bling. Fresh creps, flippest drips. Since the last vid I got rich! Innit. I've got more ice than an isosceles triangle. Let's do a little tour of my crib, yo. I say crib. It's more like my own personal casino with an amusement park side hustle but that's just to keep the popo away from my dodo, if you feel me. You feelin' me bruv? Respek."

The next 18 minutes was me walking around my 'crib', showing off the absolutely sickening wealth I'd suddenly acquired. Golden doors, golden picture frames, little tables with champagne glasses. The grubby gambling den was gone and now it all looked like a high-end place for the super rich. Men in tuxedos, women in ballgowns. Diamond necklaces, tiaras, bodyguards. I bragged the whole time, demanding the viewer understood how rich I was - and how tasteful. I really tried to be obnoxious about it. That came, strangely, quite naturally to me. I even improvised a little finger clicking thing to summon a dogsbody to refill some empty glasses.

Along the way, I emphasised how great the security was - how solid the defences were, how well-armed the guards, how undercover rogues roamed the casino at all times. "The only reason I got where I did was my little friend." I tapped my gun holster.

The only time I wasn't bombastic was when I walked past one of the enormous round metal fallout shelter doors. My bravado slipped. I looked uncertain, scratching my arm. "Should cut this," I mumbled, before moving on.

The last scene was me walking through some security gates and into my 'vault' to show people the wealth inside.

386 had really outdone himself with the vault. It was three feet deep with coins, so I had to sort of snow-shoe my way across the room. There were countless gold bars, enchanted items, tapestries, potions, more crowns, and racks and racks of magical armor.

The centerpiece was a column above which hovered a large, glowing, ruby red crystal. I tapped it with my sceptre. Thunk thunk!

"This sucka is like a casino core or whatever. It runs the tables and the rides upstairs. When I killed the old boss guy, I got hella notifications. Took over. This crystal sort of generates dungeon points and I use those to make new rooms. There's loads of screens and options and that, but I just choose whatever I think's cool and next day, there it is. Good system, yo! Kind of crazy how much dough is in here. This place musta been runnin' for years, man. Untaxed. Kay, my manager dude, said there's no way one man could spend it all." I waited for the camera to zoom in on me. "But I'm gonna give it my best shot! 3B, signing off, yo. Take it easy, homes. Peace out."

Ain't No Chillin with this Villain

You might be wondering why I'd do this. Why set myself up as this awful nouveau-riche caricature? To answer that, let me describe another video that showed up in my recommendations the next day, and tell you that I was ECSTATIC to see it and the reaction it got.

The channel name was Righteous Angus 2. The video in question - 'Taking Out the TRASH (BetterVerse RANT)' - started with a foul-mouthed tirade about how his old channel had been deleted and that set the tone. This guy was furious about everything!

A brief physical description. He was in his mid-20s, white, a bit heavy-set but looking 15% more dashing thanks to some sculpted stubble. He wore sunglasses, but sometimes ripped them off to underline a point he was making. This revealed bright green unblinking eyes. Like, I watched a lot of his videos and he never blinked.

So as I said, he started by raging about YouTube deleting his channel and said he'd still upload to his new channel there but wasn't going to engage with the community etc and people should watch through ThetanSoft if they could. Then he got to the point. My latest video. The bling one. He had bits of it looping on his background while his head filled the bottom right of the screen.

Angus RAGED about it. He said I was a ship player and a ship content creator who'd failed upwards like so many other mediocre white men and now I had the TEMERITY to present myself like God's Gift. He pointed out certain physical features of mine he didn't care for, complained about my hillbilly voice, and then he got quiet for a second.

"You know what? I'm sick of this kind of guy. This guy and every guy like him. These people burned the planet, harvested our data, made our homes into COMMODITIES. Someone like this BAIN deleted my channel, I guarantee it. What? I'm not WOKE ENOUGH for you?! You, the viewers, you poor misguided fools, might look at Bain and see a guy who's not as good as he thinks he is, who might mature out of this phase. I see the absolute fracking NADIR of human civilization!" He had gotten loud again. Very loud. He started pacing around his studio, slamming his fist into his palm. "I'm going to steal this little kitchen's gold. I'm going to steal his silver. I'm going to steal his crown and his fracking SCEPTER! Why does he have a SCEPTER for cod's sake? I'm going to break into his vault and empty his vault. I'm going to steal his gun and point it at him and make him apologize for this ATROCITY." He was hyperventilating, but seemed to be used to it - it only took him a few breaths to calm the eff down. "Stay tuned to this channel, people. Righteous Angus is going to plan to heist of the century right here in open view."

He took his sunglasses off and stared right down the camera lens. "And remember my motto. Don't get mad... get even MADDER."