Part Thirty-Two

Existential threats per day: 1

What Are You? Chicken? Braaawk

A threat outside? What should I do? Maybe someone else can explain why I did it, but I can't. I picked up a chicken and sprinted outside, rushing beak-first into two soldier types. "Oi," I shouted.

The two solid-looking gentlemen had taken the Austeralia sign down and were smashing it to bits. They glanced up at me and then back towards Polka. The villain gestured that they should rejoin their formation - two lines of 10 soldiers either side of him. I knew he was a high-level rogue, armed and dangerous. Either side of me stood alert crossbowmen: 2 to the left and 2 to the right. The two to my left were ankle-deep in chicken feed and feathers, positioned as they were by the magical incubator.

"What?" I said calmly. You know that meme from Harry Potter where in the book Dumbledore says something "calmly" but in the movie he screams his head off? It just means you can't trust the word calmly ever again. Thanks, JK. So in this case, take a little from column A and a little from column B. Polka looked vaguely surprised to see me, but wasn't intimidated by my mighty roar. I changed tack. Taking a wider stance and throwing my head back, I said, "So, Circe Polka Jr, we meet again."

Now he reacted. "I have never had the displeasure."

That's right! I'd seen him in 386's footage and thought about him so much I kind of assumed a relationship between us that wasn't there. Deepening my voice, I intoned, "My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings. Who dares trespass upon my dosmain?"

One of the soldiers took her helmet off. "You know who he is," she said. "You literally just said his name."

Another soldier joined in. "You said it wrong, though. It's with a hard second C, like circle."

Circle-boy raised his hands. "Enough!" To me he said, in a low whispery voice, "You're the wizard in league with the dungeon. You're not supposed to be here at this time of day. I have studied your routines." Thoughts rippled across his face. "Perhaps it's for the best. We are here to destroy the abomination once and for all. You sealed your fate when you allied with it." He glanced at the chicken. "Birds of a feather flock together. Prepare to die."

"Nah," I said. Konstantin and the rest came out of the dungeon, shielding their eyes from the bright daylight. They ambled over to one side, apparently to better enjoy the show. I noticed that they were 'accidentally' blocking me from the right-hand side crossbowmen. At least someone could think tactically!

Charles: Wait wait wait. You can't continue this story without telling us if you have the gun or not. Do you have the gun?

Me: Gun?

Nick [via chat]: COME ON IT'S LATE

Me: I didn't have a gun at the time of this event. Okay?

Charles: You've got those enhanced playing cards that turn into flames, though. We've seen you using those. When did you get them? And are you implying you didn't have the gun then but you do now? But you've used your hour today. You can't have been at the dungeon at midday and then gone to the north pole to get the gun. How do these portable save points work, anyway?

Nick [via chat]: SHHUUUUSH

Where was I? So it's me against these 30 warrior dudes. Obviously I couldn't, like, fight them or anything. If you've been paying attention I actually DIDN'T have upgraded cards. So I tried to bluff 'em.

"I should warn you," I said. "That I have acquired strange and wondrous powers. You have 30 warriors by your side. I have... 30,000 chickens!"

"What?" said Polka, calmly. And when I say calmly, obviously I mean 'with a superabundance of confusion'.

"You've heard of a necromancer. Well, I'm a necrochickencer." I held my chicken aloft when I said this, but I immediately lost confidence. "No, that's terrible. Hang on." I looked into the chicken's tiny eyes. "Got it. I'm an eggromancer." I was absurdly pleased with that one!

Polka ruined it. "An egg romancer?"

"No! No. Ugh. Look, I'm trying to say that I control an army of chickens. Some are zombies."

The little Peaky Blinders kid spoke up. "You should put up a sign that says 'Beware of -'"

The elf interrupted him with a very slightly twisted smile that was quite dishy. "You're a henchanter."

I gasped. That was perfect! "Henchanter! Do you want a job as well? Marketing specialist?"

Polka had heard enough whimsy. "No more games. Crossbows, prepare to fire. Men, charge into the dungeon on my mark. Minimize civilian casualties." He sneered. "Where possible."

The Ted guy came towards me. I noticed his assassin moved behind the elf, while Peaky Blinders sort of sighed and grabbed Konstantin and took him back to the relative safety of the dungeon entrance.

"Mister Bain," said Ted. "Would you like this resolved without bloodshed? Or should we just kill them all?"

I grinned. You know, at his joke. But he wasn't joking. Who was this guy? My mouth went dry. I put the chicken down and shooed it away. It seemed like there was violence on the horizon, and lots of it.

386 was screaming, "Kill them all! Kill them all!" Which I have to say was slightly disappointing, but then again, Polka was talking about murdering him.

"Um..." I said, "What's the version with no bloodshed?"

Ted pointed from me to Polka. "You... talk to him. There's an information gap. Find out what his problem is and work peacefully to resolve it."

Polka scoffed. He was as impressed by this unarmed youth as he was by me - not very. "Fire!" he said, calmly. Meaning, he shouted it.

Ted reached up, calmly, actually calmly this time, and plucked a crossbow bolt out of the air. It had been traveling towards my face at, conservatively, a billion miles per hour.

I blinked. The scene had changed. There were still the 30 warriors and the elf and all that. But there were now also about... a hundred?... more soldiers, but these were dressed in red and yellow and were pointing swords towards Polka's men who all had their hands in the air. All except the one crossbowman who had gotten off a shot - he was lying on the ground in a heap. Knocked out.

Polka was fuming. He looked murderous.

"Yes!" said 386, calmly. "Yes! Have a piece of that you faking slugs!" He didn't say slugs. He wasn't calm.

"Bro," I murmured. "Will you simmer down? I'm trying to do some diplomacy here. We need to know who Polka is or who he works for."

Damocles: Oh, Billy-Bob! I'm sorry, man. I said I'd do it. But with the whole end of the world thing I didn't think we'd need to. Then I forgot.

Me: It's fine. I get it. It was mayhem.

But it wasn't me doing the diplomacy. This Ted guy was doing all the work and honestly it didn't even occur to me to do anything other than watch. It was spellbinding. His expression was fairly cold but I got the feeling he was having the time of his life.

"May I borrow this?" He took a shield from one of Polka's men, and examined it. "Superficially good work," he said. He scraped the embossed metalwork with the bolt he still had in his hand. "Yeah, it's decent. Let's give it a proper test." He threw it to his assassin, who held it on either side. Ted approached, there was a blur of movement, and the shield split neatly into two parts. Ted took them and delivered them to their owner. "You might want to get that fixed," he said. What had he sliced it with? Not the crossbow bolt. And he was UNARMED. The warrior's knees buckled, just for a moment. I'd seen that before. BIG fear debuff. It hit about 6 of Polka's men, and Polka himself seemed to have finally got the message. He was outnumbered and outgunned in a very serious way.

"Ah," said Polka, trying to rearrange his features into something less angry. "Perhaps a peaceful resolution might suit, after all?"

Ben: Whoa.

Damocles: So it all worked out?

Me: I guess. I'm going to meet him tomorrow night. Have a civilized talk.

Adam: Who is he? Does he have a boss?

Me: I don't know. I had to log out. Polka was about to set a meeting point and the assassin guy interrupted him and said 'Don't worry. We know where you live.' And Polka lost a few more shades of color. Ted told me not to worry - nothing would happen to the dungeon while I was gone.

Charles: While you were gone? He knows you have to log out?

Me: Yep.

Adam: He's definitely an NPC? You sure? Wow. Who are these guys?

Damocles: Did the dungeon record all that? I'd love to see it!

Me: Probably.

Damocles: What time are you logging in tomorrow? Can you set us up in the cinema room before your meeting?

Nick [via chat]: We have to kill the thrall. Remember? I'm sure Bain can fill us in over the weekend.

Charles: Seems like he'd prefer to fill in the elf.

Nick [via chat]: Bye. [She disconnected from Zoom.]

Me: Dude.

Charles: Sorry. Look, are you still doing the dungeon thing? The theme park thing?

Me: I just told you I was there defending it from intruders.

Charles: You've got me confused because of the whole north pole business. Do you have a twin? You're not going to talk about it? Look, if you're still on the theme park concept, I'm going to send you an article. It's about how IKEA makes you spend spend more money. It'll help you improve your layouts. I can see you're dubious but trust me, it's a whole new level of evil. 386 will love it.

My Journey Part Three

After the Zoom call, I went to bed. Then I hopped back out and rushed to my ancient laptop. I'd decided it would be funny to post my third video right then and there, to mess with Charles who was struggling with the whole me being in two places at once thing. I uploaded it, sent the link to Valentine, and went back to bed.

On Your Toes! Sudden Narrator Change!

Guten abend! Ich bin Valentino Niklaus, formerly 3B's biggest fan. I learned a new English phrase in the last few days: hate-watching. I have been waiting for 3B to post a new video so that I can hate-watch it. And at last, my wish has come true. Phone vibrates! New notification!

I close my bank early, because I work in a half-bank half-cuckoo clock store. I could have simply taken a ten-minute break but I wasn't thinking clearly. With all the customers out, the staff given the rest of the day off, and the security blinds completely shut, I head into the bank vault. As well as a large amount of ethically-sourced gold and fully-taxed wads of cash, the vault boasts a frankly massive computer monitor that refreshes many many times faster than the human eye can detect.

I press play.

"Hi guys. Billy-Bob here." It's 3B and he's whispering. He's sort of poking his head up from a little snow dune. "I've been trying to get in that door but whatever's in there, it's full of people. Like, humans. They do patrols. I think I worked out the timing. There should be a bunch coming along any second." He scans the area. "Then I'll sneak in after them. It sounds mad but it's probably the safest way. Ship." He ducks down and we hear a murmur of voices and some crunching footsteps.

The video fades out and my blood starts boiling because I think it's going to be another false dawn. He's going to get caught and the rest of the video will be him apologising. The pulsation of my anger through my veins is amazing. Hate-watching is the best!

But the image fades in again. 3B has crawled over to the door. "It's not locked," he says. "Why would it be? No-one can get here and there's a small army inside. I'm going to go slowly, though. There are probably traps in case a yeti gets curious."

He pushes the door open and we see a glimpse of an enormous... something. A warehouse? A missile silo? A James Bond villain's lair? Think iron walkways, industrial lighting, large, unknowable machinery, people walking around in ones and twos. But 3B has scampered into a dark crevice and is looking around. Before we can adjust our eyes, he's off again. It's frustrating but fine, because I will watch the video frame by frame later.

He's hiding behind some metal pallets. He seems to want to get to the highest level - he keeps looking up there. A more experienced content creator would be telling us his every thought! His awfulness is almost refreshing - watching him is like watching a movie. Regardless, to move further, he'll have to cross an open space or run up some metal stairs. Not good for stealth! Two people walk past. I make out a few words: the reaping; cleanse; the shepherd. They shuffle out of earshot and we see that they are wearing long, blue and white robes and have crosses stuck on top of their racist-adjacent cowls.

Religion! In the BetterVerse! This was another thing the creator promised to keep out of the game. No guns, no religion, no poop, no torture, no barking.

I didn't have time to dwell on it. 3B was scampering towards the metal stairs, but at that moment a huge gong sounded and two massive, hitherto unseen doors opened. All the religious fruitcakes stopped what they were doing and headed towards them.

And there were so many! Scores of robed figures. Hundreds. Different colors, too. Some all-red, some white and grey. Most had crosses atop their heads, but some had circles, and a few had little apples.

3B crept up behind one and smacked him with a long metal rod he'd picked up. The scene faded out, and faded in with 3B dressed like a nutjob. He was the last through the doors and NOW we were in proper Bond-villain territory.

An enormous chamber, a dome, of course, dotted with gigantic statues around the circumference that, owing to the scale of everything else, nonetheless looked tiny. In the middle, a kind of stonehenge fanfiction. Several five-meter tall slabs of harshly right-angled rock, the fronts covered in writing, these slabs arranged in a fairly geometric and therefore evil-looking way, although perhaps the designer merely wanted to convey the feeling of someone rifling through the pages of a book. I quite liked it.

In front of the stonehenge thing was a very tall man dressed like a high priest who was literally glowing with power. The effect was undermined by the fact that he was wearing green robes and had a golden star stuck to his head, making him look like a Christmas tree.

The hundreds of dudes - cultists? - formed a sort of orderly rectangle in front of him and then all knelt at the same time. One cultist went down a little slower than the rest, but no-one seemed to notice.

"Brothers," boomed the voice. "Sisters. Rejoice. The time of the reaping is upon us."

"Yes yes yes yes" chanted all-but-one of the cultists, and it was as creepy as an assassin saying 'I know where you live'. I couldn't see 3B's face because of his cowl, but I assume he was scared out of his mind. I was scared out of MY mind, and I was safely inside a vault in a disused nuclear bunker in a low-crime city.

"The Voice has spoken to me."

"Voice voice voice voice."

"The road is open. The defilers are coming."

"Hiss hiss hiss hiss."

"One of them... is here now."

"Gah gah gah gah."

"Everyone report to the Chamber of the Four Score and Ten Faces of God. There we will remove our masks. There we will identify the defiler... and reap him."

"Him or her him or her."

"Good point. Could be a woman. The Voice didn't say."

The priest dude vanished in a puff of yellow powdery power. The cultists stood up and started shuffling towards another pair of massive doors that had just opened. 3B followed them at first but suddenly dashed behind a statue. Incredibly, this moronic ploy worked, and soon the entirety of the cultist horde was gone and the doors slammed shut behind them.

3B threw off his robe and silly hat and raced towards the stonehenge thing. Each large rectangular stone had writing in a different language. 3B found the English version and read it aloud. It seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place where I'd heard it before.

Maintain humanity under 50,000,000 in perpetual balance with other races;

Guide reproduction wisely - improving hit points and diversity of Skills;

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts;

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court;

Avoid petty laws and useless officials;

Balance personal rights with social duties;

Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the Engine;

Be not a cancer on the BetterVerse

Leave room for hedgehogs - Leave room for butterflies.

3B shook his head. "What."

There was a huge clang that stung him out of his reverie. He sprang forward. In the middle of the structure was a central, rectangular pillar. It had a sort of letterbox built in, chest high. 3B put his hand in, rummaged around, and pulled it out.

He was holding a revolver.

The revolver.

It was incredibly attractive. The ornate handle had a brown-black gradient, the frame was black but with a brushed bronze relief in the fleur-de-lis style. The cylinder was pure silver. 3B regarded the firearm with nothing short of awe.

"I didn't actually think..."

He pushed the cylinder open and saw it was loaded with 6 bullets. He sort of glanced over at the camera as though just remembering we, the viewers, were still there.

"I just got a notification. New item acquired. Captain Bullfrog's Depopulating Pistol. For damage it says... but that can't be right." I literally screamed. What can't be right? Say the numbers, you imbecile! He ignored my shouts. "Do I only get six shots? Wait..." Again he read the message in his head instead of reading it out loud! What a noob! But to be honest, I wasn't hate-watching any more. What's it called when you fall in love again? "It regenerates one bullet every four hours. Huh. Can't exactly shoot my way out of here, then. There must have 200 of those wackjobs. Look, I'm going to sneak out and tomorrow I'll portal to Auster and take it easy for a few days. This entire thing has stressed me all the way out."

There was another enormous CLANG. The priest teleported back into the chamber - about a meter in front of 3B, but facing the other way. Little wisps of yellow powder drifting off him.

3B was holding his breath, but the priest thing - up close it looked more like a specter than a man - slowly turned and when he saw 3B his eyes bulged comically. I didn't laugh. 3B coughed. "The Shepherd, I presume? I've lost my pet yeti. My peti. Did he wander in here by any chance?"

The priest roared. He did that thing that ghosts do in movies when they attack - he made himself bigger and sharper and generally more elongated. He crackled with psychic energy. "You are the sheeple! I must save you from the lamestream media!"

Bain shot him twice in the head.

The noise was catastrophic. It reverberated around my vault, causing my box of toblerone to slide a whole centimeter.

"Holy snip," said 3B, as he stepped away from the corpse. Clearly, the priest had been more human than spirit, because all its head giblets were sprayed, like, everywhere. If I had to swear before a court I'd have said there were more brains and blood on the floor than had ever been inside him.

There was a huge crack, then another, and a spray of rock dust from the ceiling. 3B looked up and saw a huge chunk of roof cracking. Doors opened and hundreds of cultists came running towards 3B. He raised his gun but thought better of it and turned heel and ran for his life. Dust, rocks, metal, and chunks of snow fell everywhere, continued to fall, came down in an insane torrent.

The camera changed orientation. Now it was five meters ahead of 3B, low down, looking up at him as the world behind him imploded in on itself and he was chased by cultists. His arms and legs pumped slightly faster than is humanly possible, like Tom Cruise running in [any movie].

"Please like and subscribe," he yelled, calmly, as what looked like a gigantic boulder filled the screen and the video ended.