The room falls silent. All chatting dies, everyone falling still in their seat, an unearthly calm settling over the entire audience. It’s a special sort of calm, a useful kind of calm. Plenty of people stoic, able to be immobile and unobtrusive for as long as they please. Yet, essentially none of the people in this crowd could be reasonably described as stoic- moments before, everyone was chatting away, practically social butterflies. Take George, for instance. George is many things, and a great many things he does not appear to be, but ‘stoic’ is nowhere on either list. Now? It’s as though he’s been frozen in time. Even his breathing stilled, his pupils the only sign of life left. They flit about as he scans the stage, taking in every lonesome bit of information he can gather.

Categorization helps. For instance, what is a sword? Swords are full of personality, coming in infinitely many shapes, sizes, tradition, decorations, sheathes. The sword represents a cultural ideal, a mode of status. Yet, as diverse as they may be, all swords share one trait: They cut things. Their blades are sharp, the sword is pointed and used with purpose, handled almost exclusively with lethal intent. In a way, any sword is a universal tool, solving as many problems as they can, but only ever in one way. If you make a sword that heals people when you cut them, its purpose changes outright Contrast this with dexterous hands. The same hands that can maim or kill are just as capable of healing or helping, given the choice; you’d be hard pressed to heal someone with a sword meant just for chopping. Amputation doesn’t count.

If a specialized person who hones a singular skill and their own character is a sword, then the average person is a hand. They tend to be well-rounded, emotive, capable of navigating situations without unwarranted casualties. The public is endlessly versatile. An average person may hone a skill or a trade, but they live a productive life, often one that doesn’t require the sort of brutality that grasping at power does. Sure, they lose their competitive ‘edge’, but it’s exchanged for living a pleasant existence. Frankly, there’s nothing wrong with being a hand. It’s a healthy, normal life, just the kind I’d hope to lead.

If the average person a hand, these folks are certainly swords. Now that their guard is down, I can feel it, the desperation for wealth whetting the edge of a hundred sharp gazes. This kind of person I’m intimately familiar with, the sort who pretend to be well-rounded. They use their decorative sheath and fanciful pommels to mask the single-purpose weapon within, but now that the masquerade has been called away, that veneer has vanished. As the tension rises, I resist the urge to start squawking. It’s tempting- would the sudden racket launch everyone into a firefight? But I’m a guess, and I wouldn’t want to give Uncle Fazio new troubles.

Speaking of which, if the sudden intensity is a barometer for the crowd, it says at least twice as much about the people who gathered it. I’m not entirely what Fazio’s trying to accomplish, but he already has a good head-start on building a third empire. Mother would evaluate nearly everyone in the room to be a ‘good prospect’ for ‘capital development’ if by their demeanor alone- she’s one to dance with swords, totally unlike Father, who’d take a much more deliberate approach. It’s making me curious who Thebes is, too, since mister gaudy mage guy mentioned her in the same breath as the Swordfish himself.

I scan the crowd, eventually turning to look at Chief over my other shoulder. Sure enough, he’s every bit as focused on the stage as George, his dadliness vanished into the wind. Looking further past him, I think I spot a pair of eyes looking at me, but I don’t have time to investigate- a clatter from the stage breaks the silence and wins my attention.

One of the guests stands from her guest chair, and the noise was the sound of wood grinding on wood. She’s a big woman, complete with broad shoulders and a height somewhere around two meters tall. Despite that, she looks small as she nervously shuffles towards centerstage.

It’s hard to get a decent look at her face from our side- the woman wears a habit. Paired with her decidedly plain robes, I get the impression of a female cleric of some kind, possibly a Nun ‘Sister’. Since the deities are so responsive and handy, organized religion is quite popular in Great Crusade Online, appealing to players and NPCs alike. It’s no surprise that I see quite a few probably priests and priestess in the crowd- why wouldn’t you want to give it a shot?

I’ve made a point of avoiding spoilers, but even with my limited exposure, I’ve still got a feel for how crazy-open the system is. If you want a fairly confident ‘vanilla’ option, Adamo for would-be paladin and priests, while the competing minor churches and cults branch out into all sorts of interesting and obscure points of view. For example, there’s an entire druidic sect dedicated to the Circle of the Salamander, four complementary deities approximating the eponymous creature; worship involves swimming, fishing using your mouth, and trying to conceal yourself from unexpecting pedestrians.

I watch the crowd watch the lady walk. There’s something a little mesmerizing about all those heads, the way they swivel, tracing her as she crosses the stage. I can visualize where she’s at without looking down, using the crowd’s gaze alone. Eventually, the heads stop moving, and by proxy, she must have stopped moving, so I refocus on the stage; she’s taken the center.

“Greetings, I am Malina- Sister Malina, is it?” Her voice wafts up, equal parts melodic and and confident, betraying entirely her twitchy façade. Given this much pressure, I can’t say for certain that I’d be able to speak half as clearly. Strange as that may be, it still slots perfectly into the voice I’d expect a young Nun to have.

“My business is the church.” That, too, slips away. Settling into a monotone that feels somehow more natural than the voice before, she’s gone from Nun to Business Analyst in five seconds flat. “After these few months of wheedling, schmoozing, networking, manipulation, bribery, and a great deal of blackmail, I have attained some small power within. I’ve done so almost entirely for my own margins, but Swordfish has rewarded me greatly to share just a few pertinent pieces of information.” The sword comes out, all remnants of the kind young nun entirely vanished. Sheep do not graze in a pasture of wolves. Except me, obviously.

Father made me sit in on a day’s worth of business meetings. I was fairly young, maybe six, and I’d been pestering him to, so that I could see what it was like. Still naïve enough to consider my parents good roll models, of course. He cut a deal, because of course he did. I had to play a game for him: When we entered and took our seat, me on his lap if only so I could poke my head up over the table, I had to guess which of the other magnates he was meeting that day would give him ‘the least trouble’. I agreed. As it happened, he had three people on his dossier that day. The first was a man with barely concealed tattoos and an unkind glare, the second a scrawny hand-rubber with sharp attire and a vicious grin, and finally some old dude in a business suit. I guessed dude in a suit, because why wouldn’t I?

Tattoo man went through negotiations with a smile, took the first deal he got, despite the fact that it was blatantly suboptimal. The hand-rubber ran a hard bargain, but when his advantage started to cave, he immediately maneuvered to maximize his gains rather than driving it forward. Father was impressed enough by his work that he kept him on priority ringer for years, even organized a few joint ventures with him. Then came the old dude in a suit; things went sour immediately after he decided he didn’t like Father’s “glib”. It took two hours and two fireteams to convince him to sit back down and talk more. I’ve never looked at old people the same way since. That point aside, the moral is that it’s dangerous to take people who look weak or peaceable for granted, doubly so if they surround themselves with carnivores. Crouching mob-boss, hidden CEO.

“I’m going to keep this short.” Malina paces the stage as she speaks, seemingly addressing the whole crowd at once. It isn’t an easy thing to do, given the circular, arena-like nature of the dug-out stadium. Many orators have difficult gauging just one piece of the crowd, and when you’ve never given a serious speech before, it’s easy to focus your attentions too hard on one segment of the audience, or fail to address any at all. She demonstrates a comfort with her words and tact that tells me that she’s done this before, perhaps in a professional context. More and more, I’m forced to wonder; if everyone’s so sharp, if there are solid public speakers, and big figures like Swordfish at play, why are they abusy playing videogames rather than raking in cash? Did I slip into the world’s strangest Bohemian Grove? I have to ask George what he does for a living sometime, see if I can coax it out of him.

“First: If the situation lines up as I intend, there will be a schism in the Church. Independently, I have clout to break off several cities, but the significance will vary depending on if some NPC heavy hitters decide to start calling in favors to keep it contained.” The crowd isn’t quite following. Church minutiae can be profitable, but I can tell that the more combat oriented portion is losing interest already. Chief, for instance, is already sitting back in his seat, a great deal of the intensity he’d rallied already fading away.

“Under these conditions, I will be installed as a living deity. My ideal turf will in fact be the Bracken-Mistfront territory, so if you set up shop near here, feel free to join in on the fun. Please don’t it up- any short-term profits from ratting me out will be dwarfed by the alternative.” At that, George smiles. He seems interested, if not enthralled. He’s not especially excited, but I take it that the city we came from is either Bracken or Mistfront. Useful information, if I ever stumble on a map.

“Second: There was no hyperbole in my announcement. I have reason to believe that, with certain provisions, crowd worship will transmogrify my character into a genuine deity. Now, I can’t-“ Whatever she has to say is drowned out by the uproar. The people who’d started to ease up were caught off-guard, plenty vulnerable to shock and surprise. It’s much harder to keep your edge when you’ve lost your focus, and if nothing else, Malina’s won back the crowd’s full attention. Their loud, confused attention. It doesn’t take all that long for the noise get back under control, but as Malina gets ready to speak, another obstacle throws itself in her way.

“That’s impossible!” A man shouts. He’s on his feet, now, waving an accusatory finger down at the speaker. He’s clothed in a robe so colorful it’s almost hard to look at, every fiber of the silken thing dedicated to some sort of floral pattern, flowers and vines galore. If I had to consider Malina a stereotypical Nun, I’d classify this guy as the archetypal Druid. That, or an improbably talented sempster with absolutely no fashion sense. I’m not sure which is more likely. In any case, his protest cuts Malina off yet again.

The guy sitting next to the probable Druid tugs at his robe, as if to pull him back into his seat. They exchange glances and mumbled words, but quickly, the robed man turns back to the stage, shouting once more. “Simply impossible! My own studies give me reason to believe that divinity is unobtainable by a player, at least within a reasonable span of time.” Indignation runs heavy through his voice, and if I’m to believe him, rightfully so. Everyone seems to have jumped through some hoops to attend the event, so how could he tolerate to be fed misinformation? Personally, I’d have probably kept quiet, maybe tried to plop myself somewhere convenient when the scam fell apart.

“Oho,” Malina says. She pivots on a dime, turning to look up at the man. Since he’s seated on the other side of the room, I can’t see her face, but judging by the way everyone around him seems to squirm, I’m not complaining. “I believe you, and as such, we should cut a deal after the event. In all likelihood, exchanging notes will further both of our pursuits. However,” she wags a finger up at him, as though she’s disciplining a child. “I cannot explain my findings out here. I ask you to believe me, if only for the moment, and to believe in the Developers. ‘nothing is off-limits’.” She nods up at him, and he falls back into his seat, deflated. He probably could have argued, but she hadn’t made it easy, that much is true. Instead, he bickers quietly with the friend who tried to keep him seated, probably fighting over ‘attracting unwanted attention’ or the like.

It’s important to note that the Developers have been quite clear about their vision for the game. ‘Nothing is off-limits’ is a verbatim quote, and while it’s important to add the asterisk of ‘except things that are sexually explicit, mentally scarring, or illegal’, they seem to have been true to their words. Anything the AIs can do, the setting can do, the players can do, too. In fact, that seems to be why you can choose to be an animal or monster. Rather than an alternative playstyle, it seems to have been offered merely to demonstrate that the players can be exactly who or what they want to be- if they’re willing to put in the work and game the system hard enough.

“I’m sorry I can’t be more thorough, but that is the conclusion of my second bit; players can attain godhood in a real capacity, and the key to unlocking that is worship. Go buck wild studying, or buy out my studies. Expect a hefty price-tag.” Disruptions tidily swept away, Malina returns to her pacing, now smiling, as if she’d never been challenged. It’s a little discomforting, actually. In terms of ‘verbal warfare’, she’s acted like a fancy new tank, one that shoots down bombers and rolls over anti-tank mines without a scratch. An allied soldier will see it roll over all the countermeasures they can think up and say “Damn, I’m glad that thing’s on my side”, but we simply can’t. At the end of the day, to be here is to be a free agent- notably including Malina herself.

She doesn’t seem to mind the crowd’s sudden tension in the slightest, smiling. “To wrap things up, I’ve got some good old-fashioned insider info, the bang for your buck. The Bishop of Ulars is traveling west and in search of a journeying crew. I’d quite hope to see him dead, so come see me later on if you’re game.” Which sounds an awful lot like an advert. Chief seems happy enough to hear that, and it’s not hard to guess why- established mercenary, recently unemployed, living in Malina’s turf… Looks like he’ll get something out of this after all.

“The Church is buying out huge stocks of medicinal Worts while they prepare to shelter for the inbound plague, most especially Redwort. Expect a market correction with a hike anywhere between fifty and two-hundred fifty percent.” She pauses, perching her chin on a knuckle. Her face lights up.

“Ah! Did that out of order, my bad, my bad. The Church’s oracles predicted a plague. It’ll be hitting Bracken and Ulurs sometime this month.” The audience mumbles and grumbles, processing that information. Malina stares off to the side. It takes me a moment to figure out what she’s looking at; Fazio nods down at her, and she returns the gesture, strutting off back towards the guest chairs without a word, setting off towards the guest chairs. She hardly addresses the crowd, waving idly over her back, her demeanor shifting seamlessly back to the quivering Nun she’d been before taking the stage.

The next guest speaker hops to his feet before she makes it back to her chair. Heading out towards the stage at a gallop, his mop of mottled brown hair bobbing with each step, he’s a pretty odd person. He’s got a leather jerkin and baggy breeches, the sort of outfit I’d expect from a militiaman or soldier, given the setting. When he makes it to centerstage, he pivots on a dime, and clacking his heels together, falls into a quick salute. For the first time that I can remember, my International Awareness course gives me some legitimately useful information: The man’s form and order doesn’t correlate with any recorded military practice. Put simply, it’s an imitation. Most everyone is still reeling from Malina’s departure, but nonetheless, the new guy’s entrance earns some jeers.

Thankfully, the impromptu pivot turned him to face our direction, making evaluation easy. His face is about as scruffy and stubbly as one might expect in a world with no shaving cream; I hadn’t noticed that the bulk of the players are clean and pristine. Even if he looks just a bit like a medieval homeless man, his smile is perfectly radiant, and though I can tell he’s somewhere his late twenties, his total image gives me the impression of an overgrown child, or at least someone behaving childishly. Another person pretending to be harmless.

“Unemployed Maniac Ein, reporting for duty,” the man says, dropping his salute. Chief groans audibly.

“I was tasked with developing this account for a couple of weeks to explore some novel aspects of the game system. Hell, I had to leave my nearly peaked Warrior to rot!” His tone brisk and excited, his tone reminds be a bit of a narrator for a kid’s show.

“Mages, here, you guys know what I’m saying. Casting spells doesn’t feel like using a menu, does it?” Dead silence. No one so much as dignifies him with a mumble, and if there were crickets, they’d probably be chirping. Ein caves first, finally waving a dismissive hand past his nose, swatting invisible flies. “The answer is no, thank-you-very-much. Most would suspect that the game is merely interpreting intent and flipping switches behind the scenes. To test that concept, we set up an experiment. What if I studied the mechanisms and how-to’s of a spell, then hopping over to my old Warrior, I tried the very same spell?” The crowd perks up, for obvious reason-

“and now I have your attention!” He does a quick little spin, as if to bask in the nonexistent adoration. “Yes, that’s right, we set up the first ever dual boot pod. It took Swordfish’s entire band of Hardmodders to get it safe and secure for use. I’ve been hopping back and forth between my accounts for a while now.” The crowd rumbles. Evidently, any and all ‘hardmodding’ is a bigger deal than I thought. I’m starting to wonder why- sure, if you fuck up your brain might get fried, but it’s just Engineering. With the help of someone like Jimmy Bob, praise be, how hard could it be?

“That being said, the main focus here is the actual findings. As you well know, the more you research and comprehend the magical mechanisms of a spell, the more potent it is.” He gasps, covering his mouth, looking around conspiratorially. “Whoopsies, there goes a secret. I mean, at this point it was only secret to non-mages and absolute casuals, really, but I totally didn’t mean to do that.” Indeed, a few visibly beefy and melee-oriented players look confused and a few mages look miffed, but in general, the audience is apathetic. Quick glances tell me that Chief and George are similarly unsurprised. I hadn’t actually known, though thinking it through, it’d help explain why Archstaff is so much more potent then the adventurer mages that tried chasing me.

“Now that the cat is out of the bag, I might as well keep on. You think the keyword and imagine the fireball? Itty bitty burny ball. You evaluate the atmospheric constants, enumerate the magical formula, and force-feed all your mana to Laran, and click your tongue three times? Now that’s some hot shit. Really, it’s night and day.” Pause. “Any mages who thought that ‘spell’ was a joke should consider respecing, or at least spending a chunk of hours at the library.” Ein says, and to my surprise, he’s not met with indignation or surprise. Apparently, among the top mages, clicking your tongue and doing impromptu gas-laws is a well-respected tradition. Suddenly I’ve got to wonder what the ‘correct’ way to cast Maneuver is, or if Apex Claws might have more to it than I thought.

“That’s pretty common knowledge, or at least it is now. This begs the question: What if you take your research, practice, technique, and shove it on a non-mage account? We can all learn spells, with varying degrees of success, so what if I master Spark on here and try it on my Warrior?” Instantly, the crowd is caught, fish in a net, absolutely and uncritically attentive. It’s easier to surprise people if they expect you to be a disappointment, isn’t it? To my surprise, Chief seems to be the more interested party of my two companions; George may be interested, but Chief is enthralled, despite being visibly disgusted with Unemployed Maniac Ein moments before.

“My Warrior cast the spells like a pro. All of the knowledge gained seems to be the human-brain sort, not some hidden variable, bringing us to concept two. It’s no secret that there are hidden variables, yeah? Mostly, they’re special skills gained through grinding or reading, for example, Stealth. Anyway, you’d have to pay me to get me to read books in a videogame, so I didn’t.” Ein cut out again, smiling. This time the silence feels a lot less like ‘begone-knave’ and more like ‘get-to-the-point-I’m-curious-damnit’. At least, that’s where I’m at.

“Fine, fine, Swordfish did pay me to read books in a videogame, the absolute madman.” Ein twists to wink up at Fazio. He’s back to talking before anyone can react in any meaningful way, including Uncle Fazio himself, which is probably a good thing. “Here’s the neat bit, I launched into a quest. Rather than going for Stealth alone, I hunted down a copy of the Codex Aether, otherwise known as ‘Mana Perception for Dummies’. You won’t find it at libraries, we had to waylay four Wizard Guild caravans before we could convince them to give us a copy.”

“I read the two books, both on this Mage, and now I can slip by city guards sometimes and my field of view is littered with Pride Parade confetti.” I’m forced to wonder if Swordfish paid Ein to give away all this neat information, or if it’s real negligence- mana is ‘Pride Parade confetti’? If you strip the crude joke away, it implies that mana has more than one color, implying some sort of divide between each, possibly corresponding to the entire visible light spectrum- a rainbow. Hell, even the name of the ‘Codex Aether’ could be useful information, depending on how hard the Developers ripped off the Hellenists. George starts mumbling something or another about ‘transitive’ and ‘order’, but I try to ignore him. Ein is just getting to the actual reveal, and if it is what I suspect, it’s a pretty big deal.

“Alright, cool, training complete, so when I hop over to the Warrior profile, it’s all gone. At least, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be. Maybe I honed a bit of my inner sneak while I was reading that book, but the rest is just a hidden stat, isn’t it?” He twirls to face the opposite side of the room for the first time, his speech quickening, excited, “There’s a problem with that, a big, big problem!” Ein disappears, and almost immediately afterward, a burly man in shiny metal armor takes his place.

“The mana’s all there! I can see it. I tried sneaking past the gates with this damn suit of armor, and that worked, too! I can’t see magic or sneak for shit in real life, but somehow, someway, the game’s got my number. It could have cached away some memory, or something, but the combined knowledge of the Dark Gamers says it can’t!” The knight starts to spin, vanishing just as suddenly as Ein- and the Unemployed Maniac replaces him, spinning. I wonder how they did that?

“The game reads your current body image from your nervous system, takes a sample of your brain-state at any given moment, but it’s not like it’s really reading your mind. The Brainwave Monitoring subsystem is fragile enough as is, how could they risk it?” The crowd is reeling. This has some pretty serious implications on how people play the game, or at least minmax, so I can see why. “What does this all mean? Fuck if I know, but I’m going to pretend it means that magic is real and I’ve got superpowers. Show’s over!” Ein stops spinning, strutting off confidently towards the guest seats, curiously devoid of dizziness. He gets some applause, though I think the people clapping might be dazed enough from the ‘show’ that they forgot where they were.

Another figure walks on stage, dressed in a leather jerkin and baggy breeches. His mottled brown hair sways with each calm step… Déjà vu, huh? For some reason or another, Ein is walking back on stage… Except, now that I look, Ein is back to his chair, two places at once. I hadn’t noticed before, but evidently, he has a clone. I refuse to be surprised. To be surprised would feel like accepting defeat, and I refuse to lose. This version is somber, walking slowly towards centerstage, hardly bothering to take the crowd into account. That’s probably for the best, since the crowd is currently having a bit of a heart-attack. When he makes it, he halts, turning to face in our direction.

“I am Unemployed Maniac Zwei.” He says, all business. It’s not Malina’s monotone, but it’s far from Ein’s exuberant nonsense. “I am a Mage within the ring, and working in tandem with ‘Unemployed Maniac Ein’, I have developed this character, participating in quite a bit of content testing that is currently considered to be Class Two information; please discuss any personal requests with Swordfish, I can provide no further information. First announcement: These dual boot pods are going up for auction to help pay dues and service fees, please discuss any pre-bids with Swordfish, otherwise it will be held on the primary forum this Tuesday.”

The crowd rumbles with interest, and Zwei waits patiently for silence, eventually nodding, satisfied. “Second announcement: This is to be a performative, experiential panel, and as such, it will take a while to prepare. As such, Swordfish will be explaining the situation while I work.” He looks off to the side, and Uncle Fazio stands from his wood seat for the first time since the start of the Symposium.

“This final panel will, in all likelihood, kill everyone here. Looting will be prohibited, and fair compensation offered for damaged or otherwise unsalvageable equipment. I am offering to share a Class Two secret with anyone who chooses to leave as a parting gift, such that you do not feel as if the event has let you down.” No one moves. In fact, the room is frozen solid, the winter in Swordfish’s voice sweeping the audience like rigor mortis. There’s a little nervous laughter, maybe wondering if it’s just his sense of humor. I know better. Uncle Fazio is dead serious.

After a moment, Fazio laughs, slapping his forehead, as if he’d been joking anyway. “My bad, my bad. This final event will be a summoning of the First Boss.” No one moves, at least not intentionally. Looking over George, I can see the hackles on his arms his every hair stands on end, his fear swamping his human body. Great Crusade Online is a damn impressive game, you know?

Fazio waits a moment, but no one moves. “Maybe you lot didn’t hear me right, or maybe I’ve got every brass-balled bastard on the Earth under one tent on accident. I don’t mean the Eightfold Serpent, I’m talking First Boss.” Before he even finishes speaking, people begin to blitz out of the room, jumping rows and jogging up the stairs, coursing for the one reasonable entrance. Chief starts to swear aloud, but to his credit, he stays put.

“What’s the big deal?” I ask George, and the sudden noise makes him cringe hard, jaw grating, his whole body tensed. More people course through the doors. He turns to me and whispers, “nobody’s beaten the first miniboss yet,” as if that explains everything. It doesn’t, not really.

Chief looks over, and sharing a glance with George, he seems to catch up on the conversation. “This will be the first of the ‘real bosses’ to get summoned, ever,” he says, “and at the moment, pubbies don’t even get to know his name. For the record, it’s ‘He Who Cries Unseen’.” He grunts, pointing down at the stage. Zwei is working hard, his face practically touching the floor, tweaking the position of a wax candle with alarming intensity. It’s part of a six-pointed array, what appears to be an imaginary hexagon. The Unemployed Maniac is quite thorough, I can imagine each lime quite clearly. He’s set some buckets and baubles off to the side, probably the next set of pieces for the puzzle.

“Seeing this ritual is worth more than everything else today combined. Anything from here on is worth its weight in gold. Hopefully more than enough for the therapy, too,” he laughs. I glance up at George again, curious. He finishes the thought. “Rumor has it that the summoning has a certain chance to become permanent, and that once a boss is fully realized, it’ll be able to erase player characters. We’re playing with fire,” despite that, he almost seems to relax as he speaks, a form of determination creeping into his features, “but when the time comes, we’ll be able to weight the game’s future on what we know.”

Uncle Fazio’s voice rings out. “All pertinent information gathered from here on is to be treated as a Class Three secret until further notice.” Zwei etches out sharp lines on the wooden stage, cutting an intricate pattern dashing from candle to candle. The paint is an awful shade of red, and I don’t care to speculate how it was collected. “Everyone who has left so far has been escorted out of the grounds, along with the non-VIP crowd. You may now use the entire premises as necessary, but I don’t recommend leaving the tent before we get a handle on the monster.”

Zwei spreads cloves of a plant I don’t recognize all around the circle without any particular pattern, though he seems to maintain a pretty even proportion. As he puts on the finishing touches, lighting the candles and shoving about the potpourri Uncle Fazio continues his thought. “Your primary objective is survival, hold on for as long as you can. We want to force the Boss to reveal at least a little of its true nature. Certain deciphered Ancient Lore books imply that it has more than one form.” Ein returns to centerstage, and after a brief exchange, he and Zwei line up on either side of the runic hexagon. “While your characters are almost certainly safe, our mages have so such luck; the spell will terminate these two characters immediately. While the requirements to perform the ritual aren’t exceptionally high, this is still a costly endeavor, and one I’m not keen to repeat. Put another way, this is your one shot. Please brace for impact.”

The room falls silent, and the Unemployed Maniacs begin to dance, skipping about the outside, then hopping within, feet placed clear of any of the markings. An inordinately precise game of hopscotch begins, the two spiraling in and around the hexagon, sometimes completely outside, others so close in the center they nearly touch, but never touching, and never stopping. “To you, I grant my mortal flesh, an open door,” a voice says, an unnerving, perfectly synchronized harmony. I shudder to think how long they practiced to get it right.

The dance intensifies, the two whirling and flourishing. A pair of opposing candles die without provocation, wick covered in soot, as if they’d burned out hours ago. The whole scene threatens to spook me, but whenever I think about the unholy crybaby the ritual’s dedicated to, the fear fades. “He Who Cries Unseen” isn’t the Developers’ best work. The duo speaks again, unified voice ringing out once more. “To you, I grant my mortal soul, a meal freely given,”

Another pair of candles pop out, leaving only two. The dance seems to grow more violent, more frenetic, Ein and Zwei thrusting themselves into the movement, as though they’ve lost control of their body. Actually, that may not be far from the truth, given the terms of the summoning. “Unto this Plane do I call He Who Cries Unseen, Duke of Regret!”

“He Who Cries Unseen!” They shout, and the final candles cut, the whole tent shaking inexplicably,

“He Who Cries Unseen!”

…

The shaking stops, and the two men fall down in unison. Rather, they just topple, like a marionette with cut strings, momentum vanishing entirely. No one seems to know how to react, shifting uncomfortably, maybe wondering if the summoning was a failure. That is, until Ein and Zwei begin to fly, zipping about through the air.

“We’ve got to move!” Chief shouts, and before I have time to react, he’s hoisted me over a shoulder. He takes off, throwing himself up the seats and stairs, completely unconcerned with silly little things like ‘walkways’. Dangling and flailing, I get a good look at the stage- and, coincidentally, the flying men. In particular, I see Zwei in all of his glory as he flies towards us, flung in an arc over us. George takes off, too, getting a decent head-start.

Glory is, perhaps, the wrong descriptor. He has a massive hole in his chest, roughly triangular, with every organ in the way severed and split aside, as though somee had simply shoved the viscera out of the way. Blood trailed over us as he flew, and I had to look away- back down at the stage, where a nasty splotch of blood levitates near the floor, suspended on something. Something Unseen.

“It’s corporeal, pop the pouches!” Fazio’s voice calls through the tent. I’m not precisely sure who to- everyone’s fucking panicking, and for good reason. I cringe as a far-off player gets skewered by an invisible something, their body flying off into the air seemingly unaided. Chief begins to swerve and twist, desperately dodging something he can’t see- and right on time, judging by the seats and stone that get split in two, silently sliced open by the sharpest something I’ve ever seen. It’s hot on our tail, the stadium earning new perforations in quick succession, all uncomfortably close to my, and Chief’s, head. An alarming number of people are already flicking about in the air, far less fortunate.

Something I can only describe as powdered sugar starts to rain from the roof. When I look up, I can see them- pouches sewn into the tent, fed by twine and popped by some form of makeshift firecrackers. We, and the monster, are treated to snowfall, and a vague shape begins to form above us, the strange image made from only the top slice of a three-dimensional creature. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be that complex. I’m given an immediate impression of a spider made of pyramids, sharp edges cut into every side, eight jagged legs. That much would be fine if each leg didn’t have eight smaller legs of its own, all jagged and uncomfortably flexible.

The tendrils immediately above us swing away, raking scores through the tent roof in apparent retaliation, granting brief respite. Chief keeps climbing, and we make good progress, finally reaching ground level. My blood pumps hard; it’s only been seconds since the beginning of the encounter, but I already feel like I’ve run a damn marathon. I’m starting to see why no one’s beaten the first mini-boss yet: The Developers are sadists.

Out of the blue Chief falls, and I go flying, tumbling head-over-heels. I spot a white tendril overhead, Fazio ducking into the entrance ‘hall’, George sprinting away without looking back, the flowery Druid from before being hoist into the air on a candy cane spike and then Chief, behind me, tripped over a newly deposited corpse. He doesn’t have a chance to move as the suspended tendril slams down, turning the two bodies into a shish kebab. I slam down hard on my stomach, and I activate Maneuver immediately, flipping onto me feet. Facing the wrong direction and with nasty aches, but on my feet. I whip around, tumbling into a sprint, my Shrike body not daring to demonstrate even the slightest hint of rebellion.

I’ve died once. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was over in an instant. So, then, this must be what a slow death feels like. My heart is ready to burst. My head feels as if it’s about to pop. My blood is boiling, desperate to escape a fate that I can’t hope to outrun. My body is playing nice, but so what? I’ve outrun some ‘casuals’ and ‘pubbies’, not a giant overleveled death-monster. I contemplate letting it kill me, if only to end it now, but I persevere, sprinting past the danger and into the entrance hall.

I’m out the other side in a heartbeat. A couple of people stand off to the side, watching for the powdery white shape of the monster. The sky is a little dusky.

I whip around, dodging towards the stalls. I can afford to abuse my body a little more, I’m small enough to ignore some of that nasty inertia, and with luck, I can use the canvas and wood as cover.

I make it under a table, dashing for the next tent over. I can’t hear the monster coming, but that’s no proof it’s not there.

George is further away, out of breath. He stares at me, wide-eyed. No, at the monster immediately behind me. He starts to move his jaw, as if to shout something.

I let go, rolling to my left and dropping to my right. I skid, and I watch as a vague white shape splits the world where I was moments prior.

I try to climb to hands and feet, looking above me. A tendril snakes slowly over, really floating my way in just seconds, but it feels like an hour, and it gets ready to skewer my poor body, but it shoots away, off back towards the tent. I hear shouting and explosions.

When I’m back to my feet I look over to the tent. The two people I saw hiding near the tent are spread out, one to one side and one to the other. They juggle fireballs and thunder-bolts keeping it busy, running and spreading out whenever it comes too near. A few other players try to join in, to mixed effect. One is speared before they can even begin to react, throwing everyone into disarray.

To the braves’ credit, the plan seems to be working. They have the beast’s full attention, but it can’t seem to catch any of them. Classic MMORPG tactic. I run away, not stopping until I’m at least past George, finally looking behind once more.

The beast had a vaguely cylindrical core. Now, that core is split in half, not unlike a cracked egg. The powdered portions spread further and further away, as though it’s growing. One by one the mages are caught and skewered, limp bodies joining the rest of the unfortunate many in the sky. I spot Chief’s corpse, along with his neighbor, lashing through the air, a flag on a peculiarly flexible flagpole.

I start running again, still looking over my shoulder, but eventually, I give up on that. Revealed from thin air, a crimson-red seed slowly appears in the air, a narrow oval of color that had been somehow concealed by the invisible creature’s shell, hanging in the air.

The seed seems to be another shell of sorts, but when it fully opens, I realize it’s something much more mundane. An eyelid. He Who Cries Unseen finally opens its eye, singular, and stares out over the horizon, gazing emotionally at the sunset. It has a beady little red dot for a pupil, the only blemish on a perfectly white sclera.

I fall to my knees. The monster’s pupil shakes wildly. Black liquid congeals at the base of its eye, eventually forming one big teardrop, splashing to the ground. I’m mesmerized, perfectly aware of the ground shaking itself apart and my mind screaming, yet unable or unwilling to move.

The pupil stops shaking, instead contracting, focused perfectly in the middle of the eye. The ground stops shaking; instead, the creature shakes and shivers, undulating, like a wave is spreading through the whole creature. The teardrops continue to fall.

The eye darts all around. It flicks to a man running away, and his head pops off, neck totally severed by an invisible force. It darts to George, who is similarly mesmerized. His stomach is pierced straight through, and he joins the sky. It looks over to me, and I try to move, but I can’t, I’m already flying away.

Almost after the fact, I feel the Shrike’s nerves scream, tough skin and organs ripping apart all at once. I watch as the remaining humans join us, each survivor rapidly run through, as if their survival thus far had been a fluke, a joke.

I can’t see anything, anymore.

…

The real world doesn’t look quite right when I rip my helmet off. I navigate out of the web of wires, hardly bothering to put up my interface. I’m not quitting, again- that’d be silly. I’m definitely not working with George’s gang for a bit, if only for my mental health, but I won’t let the Developers beat me. I’m done playing for the evening, but that’s entirely unrelated, probably.

I drift through the halls on autopilot, eventually finding my room, and in it, my computer. With a few taps and a clack, I bring up dSE, thinning out my peering network as far as it can go- given that America is a Clearnet country and I live on the grid, that should mean the whole planet.

I type in “He Who Cries Unseen”. Tons of results come up, but then I start to narrow the search. Slowly, those results peel away, the metrics honing in on exactly the context I want. Eventually, I’ve got the perfect search.

The perfect search with zero results. As I described, defined, and contextualized it, “He Who Cries Unseen” simply does not exist. That could mean one of two things: One, someone’s got an omnipotent bug that’s actively censoring the search, yet has never been discovered. Two, Uncle Fazio was dead serious about how secretive the information was. In either case, the ultimate conclusion is that I can’t find it, not at all.

I can’t sleep. I don't sleep.