The Panel at 10:

Moments ago, the Guard arrested Underworld Don WarCode …. I apologise alleged Underworld Don, at Voxy.

Raids at WarCode’s mansions have recovered 50 Freedom counters, so far.

We have with us, the Guard chief of Iridicrodium, DagWord herself to make a statement.

DagWord: Thank you for having me, Your Divine Brilliance.

Please, call me Susy.

DagWord: Well Susy, the remaining counters are likely in WarCode’s hideouts and will be recovered anytime now. The Guard is committed to an immediate solution to the current crisis.

Thank you. That being said, let’s now turn to our panel members to understand how this crisis started. Mr. TopBin, what are your opinions?

TopBin: Hobgoblins! Those sneaky, despicable scum. Almost every known case had hobgoblins. The Guard should -

They were deep inside the sewers. Instead of the dank, rivers of shit found in the upper layer, they were deep enough that there was no smell. The crowd swelled and threatened to burst like a balloon, but none of them burst into the stage.

“Step inside the ring!” boomed the announcer.

Corn climbed down from the crowd and followed twenty others into the ring on the stage. Large gashes ran across the stage. One of them even ran underneath Corn’s feet though all of them were confined to the ring.

“Hunger! Is! Eternal!” shouted the announcer.

“Hunger is eeeeternal!” cried the crowd. The screams and shouts that followed shook the stage.

“Today you join the Underworld. Regardless of your gang, which Don you serve, which Barren Lord bosses you around, you are one of us. A Chaotic Race! They call us crazies, but there is one truth that they know not.

Hunger is eeeternal! Hunger is Life!

Now feast!”

Corn felt the floor shake and crack into pieces. Caught by surprise, Corn slipped. One leg dangled inside the crack while his other leg supported him.

Wait, they were teeth? He pulled his leg out before it could be bitten.

The long gashes were mouths.

They opened and closed, teeth gnashing against each other. The whole stage was filled with mouths, not gashes. Using third vision, Corn could see the gashes just split apart and grow teeth. It completely caught him by surprise.

Fuck his Barren Lord, that fucking vampire hadn’t breathed a word about this. What was he supposed to do?

As he kept his balance, Corn could see a vampire walk next to a mouth and slip his hand inside it. Before it chomped his hand off, the vampire raised his hand up in the air for the audience to see. He held a bloody sac.

After the crowd cheered, he bite into the bloody sac and drank it all down.

He fist pumped and walked down the stage.

The mouth that the vampire took the sac from had fangs like a vampire. Was that the clue? Find a mouth that looked like his, with long, spindly teeth.

Corn wandered across the stage. In front of him was a mouth with tusks and broad teeth: an orc’s mouth. Behind him was a mouth with razor sharp teeth: a hobgoblin’s mouth. Short teeth, sharp teeth, gummy teeth, human teeth and a mouth that looked suspiciously like a vagina. But none of them had long spindly teeth.

No one had a clue what species Corn was, so maybe there was no corresponding mouth. Corn wandered around to make sure. Wait, he couldn’t see any ambient mana on the stage using his second vision, but what if it was like the bars in the Border Reserves office?

He bent down and unfurled his long tongue. He choose a smaller gash, to convince himself that it was a woman’s lip. He licked it. Yes! It tasted sweet, cold and had the citric tang of an orange. The entire thing was mana made.

The teeth of that mouth shape shifted into multiple rows of long, spindly teeth. A tongue, identical to Corn’s but larger, shot forth and attacked Corn. He dodged it, while also spotting that whatever was inside the mouth glowed in his second vision. It was edible.

So who ever created this obviously knew what species he was. But in a minute his joy turned to frustration. The tongue refused to let him get closer no matter what. Only two others were left on the stage.

‘Think. This is a test. How do I prove myself?’

Corn looked at his fellow crazies. An orc was using Strength to pry open the large, orc mouth. Did he have to use Magic?

He focused on the new node on his left hand, a stream of water shot forth and hit the large tongue. It stopped. Corn aimed the water stream at the tip of the tongue, forcing it fall to the stage. He emptied at least ninety percent of his reserves.

Using the gap he ran up to the large mouth and grabbed the substance inside. It was soft and squishy and glowed. He stuffed it into his mouth.

He blinked away tears, as the juices ran across his tongue. It was so good!

It soothed his burning Hunger and he could feel the energy flow to the node on his left hand. The node grew larger and seemed to freeze. The rest of the mana flowed to the node at the back of his head. His senses amplified and he could feel the range of both second and third vision expand five meters.

He was the last one of the stage, but he didn’t regret it. But more importantly, who crafted the spell on the stage? Whoever did it, they did it to empower the members of the Underworld. Not only were they a master mage, they also knew what his species was.

He reached his Barren Lord, a vampire in a golden suit.

“Who crafted the stage?”

The vampire cocked his head and replied, “Who cares? You have work to do.”

Three weeks later.

The shop was empty, so Corn banged the door shut and flipped the ‘open’ sign to the ‘close’ sign. A short weasel kin scuttled to the glass cabinets. He wore two large watches and had seven mana made daggers slotted into his vest pocket.

“Who are you, bozo?” he spat out. Corn smiled, everyone hated the clown mask.

Corn placed a metal suit case onto the cabinet and opened the latch. It was empty.

“This month’s fees,” he whispered, pointing at the suitcase.

“Fuck your fees-”

The doorbell tinkled a second time.

“Fuck, fuck. It’s the Guard. I’m innocent, I’m innocent. This man here coerced me into it,” he cried, lifting his hands up.

The orc who entered mimed shooting an air gun at the weasel kin and smiled. “All clear,” she said to Corn. Bull (an orcish name through-and through) had thick, grey green limbs (an even mix of muscle and fat); protruding tusks on her lips; and was as tall as Corn.

“The fees,” said Corn.

The weasel kin lowered his hands, smiled and softly said, “Screw your fees.”

The orc accumulated Core in her hands and punched one of the cabinets, scattering shards of glass. Then she moved to the next cabinets and held her hands above it.

“Your boss got himself arrested. I ain’t paying a single credit to WarCo-”

“Don’t say his name,” shouted Corn. The gang’s general consensus had been that the Guard couldn’t afford to set up a spell that tracked the usage of their Don’s name. But letting others abuse it was a weakness they couldn’t afford.

“All I’m saying is: if he’s arrested, then what protection can you offer?”

The orc busted open another glass cabinet and then proceeded to the next, moving towards where the other two were standing.

“Ok, ok,” he cried and ran to a cabinet in the back and opened a safe. Combination code: 153-206-056-085. He lifted out a sack. Using third vision, Corn could even tell there were two hidden compartments.

He plopped the sack on the counter. Corn cracked his knuckles, it was time to start his job. Quality assurance.

He lifted a crystal from the sack. To those with eyes, it would be a colourless translucent gem. It was a lesser Core crystal, mined and cut to contain exactly 5 Stat points for Strength and Speed users to retrieve. Well, this one contained 4 points.

“Dud,” announced Corn, placing it to the side.

He picked up another one. With third vision, he could see a faint mist inside that wasn’t mana. It was dense enough to contain a full 5 points. He placed it in the suitcase and continued sorting out the crystals.

He swept the duds across the glass, “I want replacements.”

“That’s all I have,” argued the weasel kin. The orc raised her fists on top of another glass cabinet and he soon acquiesced.

Corn nodded at the orc. She took out a sack of Core crystals and he spoke, “We want you to launder this for us.”

The weasel kin furrowed his brows, “Now? You want me to convert from Core crystals to credits, now? With all the shit you’re in.”

He was right, it didn’t make sense. Their Don was captured and their gang was sinking. Otherwise which gang would accept someone who wouldn’t connect to the System?

Now was the perfect time to withdraw all that clean credit into hard and fast Core crystals that was the universally accepted currency of the Underworld.

Instead they were doing the opposite.

“No.”

The orc raised her hands once again.

“You can break the entire shop but I’m done. The kind of work you’re talking about takes time and effort. You guys are dead. I’m goin’ to pay my protection fees to another gang.”

Ahh, complications.

“If we let you,” mocked the orc, slowly closing the distance between the two of them.

The weasel kin’s hands whipped forth instantaneously, not to the daggers in his vest, but to a hidden Screen underneath the marble cash desk.

“We have people in the Guard, you know.”

A total bluff.

“Yeah, that’s why you Don is in chains, huh?”

“Maybe not enough to rescue our Don, but enough to screw you sideways.”

The weasel kin slowly retracted his hand, “What’s in it for me?”

“You get to keep all your lives intact,” growled the orc.

But Corn interrupted her, “A small fee, 0.5% of the amount converted.”

“Hey, hang on, my usual fees are 10 times that.”

But the orc dragged Corn out of the shop and whispered, “Are you paying for that 0.5%?”

“We need that credit, now. That was the order. Now. Not 2 days later or 2 decades later. We can’t expect timely services without a reward in return. Besides, we are deep shit, how many of his lives do you think you can take away?”

The orc grunted but let go of his cloak. He sighed. Greed was better motivator than life. Especially when you had multiple lives and the Guard prowling about.

They re-entered the shop.

“1%, that’s as far as I’ll go. Take it or leave it,” the weasel kin smiled.

Corn opened the sack and took a crystal, “These aren’t lower Core crystals. 0.5% is as far as I’ll go. Take it or leave it.”

He focused his third vision on the weasel kin’s heart. It was thudding madly. Shit, did he actually offer too much? He pulled back the sack.

“I’ll take it,” he cried, pouncing at Corn and grabbing the bag from his hand.

They stored the crystals and left the shop. After walking for two blocks they encountered trolls. If anyone lost a Race counter while practicing Endurance, a troll is what they would become. They had thick, bark like skin and looked like a cross between a human and a tree.

The trolls were breaching their territory.

“Drop the bag and no one loses a life,” said the one in a grey jersey.

All of them erected a rectangular barrier in front of them. Two trolls at the flanks tried surrounding them. Corn dropped the suitcase and took out a long, gnarled stick from his back pocket. He waved it in front of them and an ice blade materialized and struck the barrier of the troll on the right flank.

The barrier cracked and shattered, disappearing entirely.

“A fucking Mage!” swore the leader and the trolls ran to a van and disappeared.

The orc turned to him and smiled, “I would be impressed too, if I didn’t know it was a trick.”

“It’s not a trick!”

“Well that’s not a wand and it doesn’t have Magic.”

However unappreciative she was of Corn’s efforts, she was right. After weeks of practice and using the powers he gained at the Underworld festival he had managed to materialize ice mana from his left hand node. Water mana if he left it free, ice mana if he squeezed the node.

He could produce actual mana! From scratch! Not just tapping the ambient mana from a wand or staff.

Everyone else, however, was not so enthusiastic. If there was no wand or staff, it wasn’t Magic. How small minded of them! To intimidate people though Corn kept a cut branch in hand. It was his pretend-wand.

“If this was a real fight though-”, the orc ran her grey thumb across her bulging neck.

Now, that wasn’t true at all.