“Not a bad haul if I do say so myself.” Athena said with a grin as she dropped another stack of papers on the table.

“You would say, since this whole thing is going exactly like you said it would.” Jicker said as he looked through and sorted the documents.

After their success in the first round of the Monster Duels, they’d quickly been inundated with questions and people wanting answers. Athena had ready for them this time, and released an official statement to an interviewer.

“The Rising Moon does indeed have the capability to create new creatures previously unseen in Genesis. While we will still be keeping the details a secret, we are able to create new creatures, even unique ones, per our own design. While it isn’t unlimited it can achieve a great deal of things, and so to lessen the number of people complaining, we’re announcing a new business venture.

Anyone may come to our guild and request a creature made for them, an animal of your own imagination. We’ll then see if it’s within our capabilities, and if it’s something the guild is okay with. We won’t be selling anything that’s too creepy, too awful or anything that would be an outright war crime. But assuming it passes all our checks, we’ll get back to you on its price, whether it’s in gold, materials or favours.

It won’t be cheap, but we’re the only ones offering this service so we set the rates. Get in quick if you want to take us up on this deal, because the queue will grow quickly. Although... we will be giving priority and discounts to the guild allies.”

It was less than two hours since then, and they’d already received hundreds of requests with more still being added. Jicker was currently splitting them into two piles: what he could do, and what he couldn’t. After that it was going to be left to people with better salesmanship to figure out what he’d actually be working on. They were going to delay it until the games were over to see if they could use it to leverage a few more deals and alliances.

“And of course, if the asteroid hits it won’t matter anyway.” Oda reminded people when it was discussed. “Have you made any progress on that front? I’ve spent a fair amount of time in this game, I’d rather it not get smashed beyond repair.”

“I’m planning to go see them this afternoon actually, since I'm low on ideas and I'm not needed for the games anymore.” Jicker answered with a shrug.

“Someone will be managing Rubble from now on, so we should be fine for the time being, but you’re not done yet. The last event of the games is a full guild war, so it’s all hands on deck no matter the class.” Athena said without looking up as she flicked through some papers before holding one up. “Hey, does anyone know what white phosphorus is? This person wants it included if possible.”

The assassin grimaced. “That goes in the ‘no way’ pile, that stuff can be nasty. Back to our conversation; see if they have any leads on how to stop it, or what we can do to help.”

Jicker nodded. “Will do. On another note, I'm gonna get out of the city for a few days.”

“What, why?”

“Like I said, I'm not needed right now. So I'm gonna head out and try and clear my head, see if I can’t come up with anything to fix this mess.”

Athena nodded. “Fair enough, just make sure you’re back in time for the war. Do you know where you’re headed?”

“I thought I might investigate the highland area; see if I can’t track down some signs of my class trainer. Maybe some new abilities will give me some new ideas.”

“Ok, stay safe out there and don't do anything crazy.” Oda said warningly.

“Please, I'm not Gabe, what have I ever done?”He said defensively.

“The last time you travelled alone you got kidnapped repeatedly, before unleashing a plague that’s trying to spread over the world with some degree of success.” He answered with a raised eyebrow as he crossed his arms.

“...Point made. I’ll be good.”

~~~~~~

The streets were crowded as Jicker made his way through, though Hermes cut a path through as people moved away from the large crab whether they like it or not. While he was still something of an attraction, he wasn’t being actively followed. Athena had made sure to have him remove all indicators he was part of the guild before he left and with good reason. While they would certainly come to his aid if he needed them, there was still a reason why most of the guild was hiding out at the secured hotel. Even as he tried to leave the building, they’d first had a few people run a quick distraction so he could get past a few of the spies that were lurking about.

Feeling peckish as he travelled, he decided to swing by the food court, planning to grab a few things for the trip. What he found instead as he turned a corner, was a sight he could never have prepared for.

An enormous billboard had been put up, with the words ‘The Frozen Terror’ written on it. Underneath was a picture of Gabe taken during his last match, showing him playing in the snow like a child. It seemed to have been set up to try and discredit him, ruin any chance of him still having any kind of fearsome image. A crowd was gathered at a stand that had been set up beneath it, manned by the man himself. With a growing sense of dread, he approached to get a better look at the situation and sighed.

Gabe had somehow gotten a hold of a number of syrups, sprinkles and a host of other sweets and had apparently started selling snow cones. Grabbing an empty paper cone, the warlock would hold it and begin dropping toppings as it filled itself with fresh ice. While one line moved quickly as they got their frozen treats, another group at the stall seemed more stationary and agitated.

“You coward,” He overheard one of them say. “Get out of you little stall and fight us!”

Gabe shrugged as he handed a cone to a customer. “I’ve told you I'm not fighting anyone today. Here’s your strawberry snow cone miss.”

“Hey Gabe, what’s all this?” Jicker asked.

Gabe looked up with a grin. “Jicker! Oda shot me a message that you’re heading out for a bit, fancy a snow cone before you go? My treat!”

“Sure, but shouldn’t you deal with...them? The ones threatening you?”

“What these guys? There just messing around, aren’t you Dave?” He said, point at them with a spoon before beginning to make up another order.

“I'm going to rip out your spine you bastard! Just come out here and fight me!”

“See? Classic Dave!” Gabe laughed. “But they’re harmless; they’re not going to do anything with the lads standing by.”

Gesturing with his head, Gabe point to a nearby building where a group of heavily armed fighter stood around keeping an eye on things. Seeing them looking over, one of warriors gave a wave while grinning before returning to eat the frozen treat in his hand.

“You hired some guards? I thought you were already in trouble about the guilds funds.” Jicker asked.

Gabe winced. “I’m being good I swear. I bought all this stuff out of my own pocket, and I'm not paying those guys anything, except a few snow cones on the house. There’s an open contract with the city to act as addition security for the games.” He explained. “You sign up, you get a badge and you get to play rent-a-cop. The pay isn’t huge, but you get a bonus if you actually stop crimes, and one of the biggest is stopping people who attack registered stores.”

“So they’re just watching you? Not patrolling or anything?”

“Why bother? Dave and his little playmates are the fifth group to come say hi this morning, so just by watching me they make bank and I stay out of Athena’s bad books.”

Jicker nodded as he processed this. “That explains how... I guess, but... why?”

He paused for a moment before clearing his throat. “I really don't want to have to sell my organs to make up for the money I lost, so I'm doing what I can.”

“You know Oda was joking about that right? He wouldn’t actually-”

“That’s what I thought!” He shouted, slapping the counter, startling the group threatening him which in turned prompted the guards to approach. “But then I found a couple of messages people had dropped off making offers. Apparently my liver is valuable to people but I’d still like to keep it.”

“Well we’ll be happy to take it from your cold, dead corpse!” the man addressed as Dave screamed at him.

Having had enough of being ignored, he swung an axe at Gabe’s arm leaning the bench, severing it at the wrist. Instead of the normal reaction, Gabe didn’t scream, flinch or even bleed.

Shrugging, the warlock picked up his hand and pushed it back into place before coating the joint with ice to hold it in place.

“A dead corpse is just a corpse, and I've been a cold one of those for years now.” He signalled the guards, waving with his reattached hand. “Okay ladies and gentleman, they’ve officially attacked me, feel free to bag them up. There shouldn’t be a delay on snow cones while they take care of this, but make sure to move out of the way if need be. Jicker, want something before you go?”

Jicker looked back at the brawl beginning behind him, weapons and magic coming to bear.

“Do you have anything with pineapple?” He sighed.

“One piña colada coming up.”

Ice in hand, he made his way through the streets, avoiding any particular clusters of people that seemed like they might be dangerous. Most of them were just groups of fans talking about the games, or guilds advertising their products or recruiting members, but every now and again he’d pass an alley filled with shadowy figures. The guards did their best, but with over ten times the population being tourists, there was a reason they recruited players to help out.

Outside of the city, things were quieter with most people who were attending the games having already arrived. Hermes made quick time as he skittered down the road, passing the few other people who’d decided to get out for a while or had better place to be. After getting clear of the few people around, he retired deeper into Hermes shell to log out for a while.

~~~~~~

Taking off his headset, Matt sat up and rubbed his face before checking the clock. It was late in the morning as he got himself presentable, still struggling to wake up properly as he shaved. Heading down from his room, he sent a quick text message to let Sarah know he was on his way.

When he arrived, the building seemed to be in a state of disarray. People were running from one room to another carrying folders and computers, but whenever he asked someone what was happening, all they said was that it was above their pay grade. There was no one at the front desk, but after a few minutes someone hurried towards him and said that he was to head up to the boardroom.

When he got there, there were only a handful of the board members he’d seen previously, and none of them look like they’d been sleeping well. Most notably was August himself though it took Matt a moment to realise it was even him.

Dishevelled and haggard, the man looked more like a homeless man who’d wandered in than the CEO of a global corporation. Unshaven, his eye were bloodshot under a mess of unkempt hair matted with grime, his suit that likely once could have paid for a house now stained and torn.

“You again,” he growled, the man’s voice raw and cracking as he turned to face him. “You just... couldn’t be like everyone else, couldn’t just leave things as they were. Everyone was happy, the company was making money but you just couldn’t accept it. Why? Why did you have to RUIN EVERYTHING!?”

Without warning he lunged at Matt, wrapping his hands around his throat. He might have seemed like he was falling apart, but as he tried to crush the life from him, Matt could see in his eyes that he was completely focused. Pulling at his hands, Matt was unable to break the man’s grip as he struggled to breathe.

“Everything! It all started crashing down after you got involved!” August shouted, spitting in his face. “The game changed, my business twisted under me and... It! Your friend, another company whatever it is! They started ruining everything, they’ve torn apart my life, and hit other board members as well. If it wasn’t for you...”

While Matt choked, struggling for air the doors burst open as a security team rushed into the room, quickly dragging the business man off of him. Collapsing to his knees, he took deep grateful breathes as he watched the still screaming August being frog marched out of the room.

“I’d like to apologise for that... outburst, he’s under quite a bit of stress at the moment.” One of the executives said, offer him a hand up.

“He just strangled me!”

The man nodded with a strained expression. “And as I said, I apologise. Things have been tense of late, and Mr. Fronz has been bearing the brunt of things. If you’d allow us to-”

Someone rushed into the room. “Apologies, but there are some reporters down stairs wanting to speak to the CEO.”

The executives looked to each other before nodding at some undeclared agreement.

“In that case,” the one helping him up continued. “We’ll continue this elsewhere while my associates handle the news. If you’d care to step this way?”

Following him out of the room, Matt saw that most of the building was in the same state of disarray, people running around and moving things seemingly at random. While just walking down a single hall ,he someone run up and connect a computer on a desk, only for someone else to unplug it and carry it off moments later.

“What the hell is going on?” Matt asked after seeing this.

“Please, hold your questions until we’re away from prying ears.”

Eventually they found themselves in a small unused office, marks on the floor showing it may very well have been occupied only hours ago.

“I’ll try and make this brief, who knows how long until some tries to come in and use this office. “ The man said. “I'm Lawrence Fisher, executive in charge of human resources, and one of the few left.”

“So you’re the one I should complain to about the near attempted murder back there?”

“In another time, I would have been the person trying to cover it up at least. But things are well past that, and in your exact situation all I can say is for you to try and ignore that it happened. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.”

Matt sighed. “No, it’s not. I'm here to ask about... wait, what do you mean you’re one of the ones left, what’s happening here?”

Lawrence paused, steepling his fingers as he thought. “How do I put this... you recall the messages that Mr. Fronz was sent from an unknown source? In fact I believe you were sent something similar if I recall correctly.”

“I do.” Matt said hesitantly, growing more concerned.

“Mr. Fronz did his best to ignore them, even oppose them. But since then things have escalated considerably, and not in a positive manner. Records of his more illicit actions have been given to the press, accounts have been frozen under strange technicalities, and some more... private affairs were made known to certain parties.”

“Private affairs?”

“Well, just affairs if you must know. His wife is filling for divorce, and is trying to take the kids and half of everything. Normally the Masquerade lawyers would deal with that quickly but certain legal documents have vanished or been found to be invalid, both the physical and electronic copies. He’s started lashing out at others, thinking the other executives were plotting against him.”

“Were they?” Matt asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not exactly. At this level everything’s a bit cutthroat, but all the schemes I'm aware of are all against other executives, trying to get a bigger piece of the pie. While, if I'm honest, August is a piece of human garbage who deserves what he’s getting and more, he’s a genius when it comes to business. He built Masquerade Entertainment up from nothing, and in that sense we all have nothing but respect for him, leaving us to fight for second place. Now, with most of being fired or having our own secrets announced by this third party, we’ve initiated an act to declare him currently unfit to remain in control.”

“A coup then.”

“Again, I respect the man, or at least his outward persona. If he was nothing but the scum at his core, yes he’d be out with a handshake and a kick up the rear. But the business, hell, the industry might not recover if he’s removed completely, so we’re doing this for his own good. He’ll be unable to make any decisions until we deem him fit to return.”

“So that’s what’s happening is it? Everyone’s running around like madmen because the bastard won’t be around?”

“No, everyone’s running around because he was. One of his last actions before we managed to shut him out was to try and throw off whoever’s interfering with things. His idea was if he shuffled things around enough, they wouldn’t be able to keep up. So he sent out a lot of orders, like, a lot of orders.”

Matt stared at him. “And people actually did it? The man’s insane!”

Lawrence chuckled. “Obviously, but he’s the boss, so the lawyer will back his actions regardless.”

“And the lawyers don’t care about the random chaos they’re causing?” Matt asked, before pausing as he caught himself. “Right, of course not, they’re lawyers.”

With a small clap he nodded. “So that’s where we stand, but it should quiet down by tomorrow. But that’s what’s happening here, not what happening in Genesis, which I assume is why you’re here?”

“There’s still a world ending lump of rock heading down, so yeah, I want to know what happening with it.”

“Well...” he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, reading from a document on it. “According to this, we’ve tried and checked every kind of method of outright deleting it. We’re looking in to seeing if we can change the ownership and permissions on it, to see if that changes things, but it’s not looking promising. There are three teams looking into other potential solutions, two of which are long shots, and the other would be almost as bad as the asteroid itself, though I doubt we could get that to work either. Clearing it through a server reset was proven to be unsuccessful, and the programmers say they can’t figure out anything to intercept it in a way that doesn’t make it worse.” He put away the phone and shrugged. “It seems like we’re running low on ideas, so if you’ve got any, we’re all ears.”

“Can’t you just... do it anyway? Surely anyone who found out would agree it’s better to break some stupid law to get rid of it, than let it wipe out everything?” Matt asked, running his fingers through his hair.

Lawrence raised his eyebrows at his words. “Law...? Ah, so you’ve only been clued in that far. Well, it’s certainly not my place to go over those matters, but in short there are other factors in play. Believe me, if the courts were all we had to worry about, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I’ll let a few people know about your visit, and it’ll be up to them what to tell you about things. It’s all very secretive I'm afraid, so I can’t say anymore on the issue. But for now I suggest you return to your hotel room and back to Genesis. You’re more likely to find an answer in there than you do out here.

Now if that’s all Mr. Harper, I’d now like to ask you to see yourself out.”

~~~~~~

Logging back in Jicker found that Hermes had been making good progress on his journey. Now that he was properly registered, no one would mistake him for a wild monster, and while travelling on the main roads, other creatures shouldn’t be an issue.

At least that had been the situation before he’d unthinkingly unleashed a growing epidemic on the world in the form of the greycaps. People were still safe enough on the roads, but the roads themselves had developed a tendency of disappearing under newly grown trees from the Blightwoods. Like the one he was looking at now that Hermes happily ran towards, unafraid of the dangers thanks the immunity from the golden crown.

“Everyone get ready, we’re going to make another push in a minute!”

Turning to see where the noise came from, he saw a few dozen people, most of whom were mounted, all getting ready to seemingly charge forwards. Yet while they were heavily armed and armoured, there were looks of resignation on their faces, as if they already knew how it was going to go. Looking across the field to see their opponents, he saw the remains of a small farmhouse, half swallowed by the growing Blightwood.

In addition to the trees he saw a small group of familiar figures, in a combination he hadn't expected to see. Standing by the edge of the newly formed woods, a group of greycaps stood by with a number of poppits, going through what seemed to be a ceremony. Bringing Hermes to a stop, Jicker watched with interest, seeing how far his spur of the moment creation had developed.

With great reverence, the tiny mushroom figures carefully brushed the animal’s fur with sap in sections, creating a scale like effect of the hardened material. The rabbit like creatures remained stationary, already under the spell of the greycap spores their noses twitching slightly at the scents in the air. Once the coating was done, a number of greycaps walked forward, kneeling as another walked past them, painting little lines on their faces, and on their caps. It would have been a serious scene otherwise, but the tiny mushrooms and rabbits made it seem to Jicker that it was just children acting out a play.

With the painting done, they all stood and got on to a poppit, forming the smallest cavalry detachment while another pulled a horn out. Raising it up they gave their best attempt, but all that came out was a stuttering whistle. It was enough however, and the poppits leapt into action, running as fast as they could towards the enemy. With their riders weighing them down and their fur sealed into pieces of resin, this speed was slightly below a person's walking pace but they ran their hardest nonetheless.

“Gods, okay its happening.” The leader of players called, defeat in their voice. “Let’s see if we can hold them back this time, or whether mages are going to need to bombard the area again. Charge!”

The players began to move forwards, cautiously at first, then giving in to their goal and racing to battle. The fight was comically one sided, a group of seasoned warriors facing off against what was more suited to be a cereal mascot. But as the two sides got closer, the woods shook behind them as bodies flew out, groaning and growling as they launched forwards. A handful of people, scores of monsters and seemingly hundreds of animals spilled out, running mindlessly across the field, all with the tell tale marks of being converted into fungal zombies.

Overtaking the greycaps, the undead crashed into the warriors with no strategy or formation, using nothing but strength, numbers and a complete lack of fear or pain. A wave of biting, clawing muscle, they struck the players hard, bring down a few on impact and breaking their line. The adventures were quick to respond however, deploying abilities and barriers to both regroup and funnel the enemy into a more manageable group.

Heavy shields were held in front to take the brunt of the attack, while spears stood behind to attack from safety. Several rogues wove between them, cutting down the smaller creatures that slipped through while healers supported them all. Mages and archers stood furthest away, launching attacks into the mass behind, relying on brute force instead of precision strikes. All the while, the majority stood waiting, readying themselves for when the line fell, and it would turn from an organized assault into chaos.

It wasn’t long before the first defender fell, unable to withstand the overwhelming number that had surprised. The others shifted their positions, trying to make up for the loss, but the tipping point had already been reached. One after the other, they fell to the undead until the line collapsed completely, giving way to the next phase of the battle. The melee fighters, who’d been holding back, now found themselves surrounded by enemies and wasted no time in bringing out their best moves. Zombies were torn apart by the forces, begin sliced, crushed, pierced and destroyed in countless ways. The undead push ground to a halt, its momentum countered as it ran headlong into kill box that had been set up. Flames washed over the horde turning dozens of small creatures to ash, and it seemed like the players had them on the ropes.

Then the first of the mounted greycaps reached the battle, it spelled the end. They took out tiny spears and jabbed into the side of the poppits once they amongst the players, causing a chain of explosions. The sap coating broke off under the force, filling the air with razor sharp pieces of shrapnel from the kamikaze attack. Every figure, zombie or player, was brought down from the blast leaving the battle still barring the twitching of a few bodies.

After a few minutes of nothing happening, Jicker was about to head over and see if there was anything worth looting when figures began stirring. The players who had grouped up to attack the woods struggled to their feet and helped each other up. Looking around, they seemed unfocused as if still reeling from the explosion, struggling to stand up straight.

He was about to call out to them to see if they wanted help, when one turned and waved to him. Even from his distance he could see the telltale signs of the zombie infection, and remained silent as the group turned as one and walked into the Blightwoods. A moment passed before he shook his head and nudged Hermes back into motion, continuing on his journey.

“Huh,” he muttered to himself as he thought. “Neat.”