Side Chapter: Namey

“Do-do-do-dee-do,” Namey humed a little nonsense song, his Voided mind inferring that singing the song would make those around him less on guard, and thus ripe for exploitation. He ‘knew’, in-so-far as a Void Soul could know anything, that his presence was deeply disturbing to the largely psychic population of Mice Labs. They had no idea what he was thinking, because he wasn’t thinking anything. He was pure intelligent deterministic action, shaped and directed by the whole human brain. Not malevolent, no, never that, but selfish to a degree that was undeniably evil.

“Do-do-dum-de-dum,” Namey continued, having shaped his body into a configuration which a conscious being would have recognized as comfortable, but which did nothing for the Void Soul. There was some kind of. . . commotion going on outside his isolation unit, and he really didn’t care about it until someone opened the door. It was. . . Namey leaned up, looking at the black clad figure in religious clothing.

“It’s true,” the Priest of the Lowest Depth said, his voice a hiss.

“Hi! I’m Namey! You look like an evil son of a bitch, want to become my demonic servant?”

“Oh Dark Ones, do I ever,” the priest of the lowest depth said, and Namey held out his hand, a burning, evil wish in his palm.

“Make it a big one,” Namey said, his voided mind already preparing the sequence of events required for him to attain the greatest possible benefit.

“You truly are one of the Dark Masters,” the Priest of the Lowest Depth said, looking not at the wish, but at Namey. Looking at the void soul and seeing the absolute selfish intent. The purity of his morality. “A Dark Saint,” the Priest declared, falling to his knees in awe.

“Yeah I am!” Namey immediately agreed, “Now hurry up and make a wish!”

Things were about to start getting really bad, when the intense, harsh religious training of the Priest of the Lowest Depth kicked in.

“I cannot,” he said, still breathing hard, the idea of an essentially free demonic descent clawing at his bulwark of self-control, “I must bring you back to Abomination. Your gift must be shared with my masters first.”

“Do you have a lot of masters?” Namey asked.

“I am a slave to many, yes.” In response, Namey hopped up from his reclined position and started walking out of the cell.

“Let’s get going then! Hurry up!”

Things were about to start getting really, really bad.

Chapter 19: Why I oughta

Ben glowered darkly, and drunkenly at the waiting cops, then pressed the button on his pocketwatch of timeloop. The world around him staggered and jumped.

[You have entered a time loop. This loop will expire in twelve hours, or upon your death. Due to Chained God’s Favor, this time loop is being broadcast over the entire city of Solas via the Capital Crystal.]

Ben grinned, then threw his beer mug as hard as he could at one of the Sunlet cops. It shattered against his face, and Ben yelled ‘Attack!’

His party sprang into action, and within three minutes, everyone was dead.

Ben coughed, blinking and then pressed the button on his Pocketwatch of Timeloop again. With his supply of Holy Energy, along with the fact that the Capital Crystal of Solas was assisting him. . . well, it wasn’t like he could just frivolously do whatever he wanted-

“ATTACK!” Ben screamed, fully prepared to utilize his knowledge of how his party had just wiped out to-

It actually made it worse, and this time they died in under a minute. Ben was a terrible tactician, and an even worse fighter.

“All right you fucks,” Ben said, starting another loop, then getting up and walking over to them, “let's go to jail.”

He was handcuffed, peacefully, and then Ghost Ears was also arrested, though he only got the ‘distribution of illegal narcotics’ portion of Ben’s much more respectable list of crimes. It disturbed Ben both that he was thinking in terms of having a longer list of crimes AND how he might go about adding to that list. He had a bunch of stuff he wanted to say and mouth off about to the police, but he was in a time loop, so he wanted to save it for when it actually mattered.

“All right officer, I’m going to cooperate now. Please keep your extremely dangerous batons holstered,” Ben said in a deadpan voice. The cops looked at one another, shrugged, and then started to take Ben away.

Short Bus, who had been reading Ben’s mind and thus knew he was in a time loop, decided to covertly follow along with no regards for his own personal safety, because this was, as far as he was concerned, all a dream.

He took Vivi, but didn’t tell him they were in a time loop.

--

Ben was extremely calm, and listened and watched everything around him very closely. He was taken on another one of those, Ben thought, extremely impractical floating platforms with the clear glass bottom. He examined his ring, which was considerably less full of wishes than it had been before. One Wish, one lesser wish, two minor wishes, and two trivial wishes. Six total, but he could probably stretch that a while if he split the more powerful wishes.

While he examined his ring, and he was being kind of obvious about it, he noticed just how tense, just how nervous the high level and extremely deadly police officers were. Ben made the connection immediately. As of right now, they had no idea how dangerous Ben actually was. All they knew was he had a ring full of wishes and a tendency to use them. It was a time loop, so Ben decided to have a bit of fun.

“I wish-” Ben said, and watched, with a high degree of amusement, as the two of them tensed up and prepared for action. “Nevermind, nevermind. Ooh, hot crowd. Note to self. Hey, you seem nervous.”

“We’re escorting a human with wishes at his disposal,” one of the cops said, “this is quite possibly one of the most terrifying nights of my life.” The other cop nodded.

“Hey, that sucks man,” Ben said, putting on a sympathetic face, “Tell you what. I’ll promise to cooperate and behave myself and not make any wishes, if you guys promise to answer my questions and tell me what the hell is going on?”

Rule number one of the time loop, information first, fun last.

“Fine,” one of the cops said, “we were on our way to arrest you before you put on that massive fucking parade. You are under arrest for seeking to circumvent the lawful chain of custody of the corpse trade in Solas-”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Ben interrupted.

“You went to an illegal corpse preparation-”

“Say it like I’m stupid, because I’m really fucking stupid,” Ben interrupted again, this time taking a moment to pick his nose like how Short Bus liked to when he was being obstinate.

“Mice Labs, you went to Mice Labs. We’ve known about them for a while, but never had a reason to bust them, because nobody complained. Well, someone complained, and Mice Labs has exactly none of the paperwork required for the work they’re doing, none of the licences, none of the training, none of the experience, and hardly any levels.”

“They seemed to be doing pretty well to me,” Ben commented.

“They certainly knew how to make money,” the cop said, “and A LOT of people are pissed they got ratted out. They’ve been paying off. . . pretty much everyone who matters, and they’ve been paying well.”

“Are you supposed to tell me all this?” Ben asked, feeling weird that someone would just come out and admit corruption like this.

“Doesn’t matter,” the cop said, and Ben felt a little less happy about this whole situation.

“Ok, ok. Cool,” Ben said, “Who ratted me out?” Ben sensed some hesitation, so he sweetened the pot, “Who ratted me out or I start wishing for some crazy-”

“I don’t know exactly who, but I know they were with you when you beat the Citadel.” Ben ran down the mental list of who it could be and came to a pretty easy conclusion.

“Was it Dryst?” Ben asked, his face flat, “Dryst, the salty, salty sno-cone? Fucking Dryst, seriously? What is that guy’s problem-”

“Like I said, I don’t know who it was,” the cop said.

“Wait, so what happened to Mice Labs?”

“Busted,” the cop said, and his partner nodded, “we seized everything. One of those Dark City guys-”

“Shut it,” his partner said, cutting him off. Ben, due to the [Freeform] nature of his new class and level system, was able to create new skills on the fly.

“[Arrow of Wish],” Ben calmly said, and above his hand, a burning white arrow of light appeared. It radiated a feeling of [Instant Death] for whoever it struck. A trivial wish vanished from Ben’s ring.

“Stars! All right, all right put that thing away!” Ben obliged him, and the trivial wish re-appeared back in his ring. “The head of the Black Caravan said he had a premonition or a prophecy or something, look, those guys are all nuts, ok? I don’t understand half of what they say, and the other half, I wish I didn’t understand, you get it? I just know when those guys are in town, you give them what they want and hope they leave quickly. He wanted to come on the raid for some reason, and he wanted- I don’t like ‘em, nobody likes ‘em, but nobody fucks with the Dark Cities except crazy assholes like you. Oh buddy, did you stir those evil fuckers up with that parade shit. I’ve never seen ‘em in such a rage. You’re dead, kid. You’re dead, and you’ll be lucky if it’s not them who gets you.”

“Wait wait wait, what did the Dark City guy want on the raid, you cut that part off-”

“He-” the cop didn’t want to say it, so Ben resummoned his [Arrow of Wish], “All right! Put it away, put it away! He wanted some death, ok? He wanted to hurt some people when he found out you knew ‘em.” Ben felt his skin go cold, felt the Holy Energy inside him grow cold as well.

“Oh. Thank you for answering my questions,” Ben said, putting the arrow away and reclaiming the trivial wish once again.

The rest of the trip was in silence. There was a ringing in Ben’s ears, in his skull; a numbness in his nervous system like someone had dunked him in novocaine; or, he reflected with what little mental power he had available to him, like his entire body and psyche had just been scorched numb by anger. They arrived at a building that wasn’t a police station, a building in what looked like a bad part of town.

Ben, meek as a lamb, was shepherded into the building and then into a room with only one door and no windows. As soon as the door closed, the room began to fill up with poisonous gas. Ben’s lungs burned and his stomach heaved and his blood was filled with poison, and all he could think was that he deserved this, that he was glad he was about to die for his sins.

It wasn’t a fast death, either. Plenty of time to think and reflect as his body spasmed and rolled around and ran about, going through the motions of death, doing all the pre-programmed survival routines. Ben reflected on the nature of Solas thus far, on everything he’d seen and everything he’d been able to extrapolate from what he’d seen.

“This-” Ben gasped and coughed, “this city fucking sucks.” He fell over, his eyes bulging out of his skull- the pain was- well, it wasn’t even worth describing, because anyone who could relate or understand, wouldn’t want to remember it.

It was a city that arrested him three times in a single day; a city that betrayed and exploited him at every opportunity; a city that treated him and other humans like shit; a city that openly and ravenously planned to fuck them over in court to steal everything they had; a city that rolled over for those weird, backwards freaks from the Dark Cities; a city that. . . murdered his new friends in Mice Labs; a city that paid back the [Parade of Wonders] by fucking gassing him.

Ben would get no justice here. He realized that, and in the same moment, realized that Namey, for all his flaws, had seen things clearly, and seen them immediately. This place wasn’t his friend, and he owed this city no degree of obedience. Their laws meant nothing to him, and were not meant for him. This wasn’t a fucking city, this was a goddamn dungeon run by Sunlets.

“This place-is a-” Ben looked up and saw Death standing next to him, his shining green eyes still twinkling with merriment.

“A dungeon, young prince,” Death finished, then reached out his hand. “Have you suffered enough for your sins, or are you ready to go back?”

Ben took his hand, and the world faded away.

--

“Sir, you are under arrest. Come peacefully or we will use force!”

Ben’s ears were ringing, his head once again pressed against the bar. He ignored the cops and flipped his head to be facing his drinking companion.

“Hey, I’ll trade you a Trivial Wish if you come with me and make sure I get out of this bullshit,” Ben said, his eyes flat.

“Deal,” The Royal Sage of Solas said, smiling a very big smile under his blue hood.

“What- Sir, wh-”

“Can it,” The Royal Sage of Solas said, standing up, “let’s get going. My friend here is a very busy man.”

Ben stood up and covertly stowed his Pocketwatch of Timeloop away in his Utility Pocket.