What worried Shin was not his summons to the formless astral void that played host to the mechanisms of the System laid bare. It was not that said summons were completely unexpected and entirely without his consent. It wasn’t even that, as a direct result of his sudden disappearance, that damn Player probably thought he’d frustrated Shin to the point that the kobold had evaporated into nothingness.

No. What worried Shin was that there wasn’t anywhere to sit.

During his last visit to the Inside Place, there had been chairs. A table. A decorative vase, even. What would become the Shinki Itten Council had then been brought to this realm to wield the levers of the System itself, and the System had seen fit to accommodate them with a touch of comfort. Not this time, though.

It was never a good sign when one’s chair privileges were revoked.

Scattered noises of alarm alerted Shin to the fact that he was not alone. At least a dozen other kobolds and hobgoblins had been dragged to the Inside Place as well, huddling together out of distress at their summons to this unfathomable realm. The few faces that remained calm, however, were ones he was intimately familiar with.

“Well damn n’ heckfire, ain’t this a fine how-d’ya-do?” Moots swore, bending over to knock non-existent dust from the hem of his robe. “Dunno what this lark’s all ‘bout, but leastwise it got Ol’ Moots away from that damned idjit for a spell.”

“You’ve got one, too?” Shita questioned as she helped her husband Kota up. “Same with me. Had no idea Players came in such varieties of stupid.”

One of the trembling hobgoblins stuck his head out of the huddle of villagers. “Um, me too? It was like trying to teach a stone wall!”

That opened the floodgates, the summoned kobolds and hobs volunteering their own trials and tribulations.

“Same here!

“ –was trying to make all his clothes hats, I don’t even–”

“I was so mad, I threw a whole bookcase!”

“ –so stupid! SO stupid!”

Shin blinked. Wait a second, were these…one quick inventory of the assembled villagers later, the Schemer had confirmed it. This was every single Profession Trainer in Shinki Itten. They’d all been set upon by ill-intentioned Players? All on the same day, at the same moment? That was not a coincidence; no way. But why were they all–

“Alright that’s all of you; let’s make this quick”

One of the kobolds managed to squeak out an alarmed yelp as the figure coalesced in front of them, a silhouette of a man burning itself into the space before them., All of the others were unable to do more than stare slaw-jacked as the outline became tangible, the very stuff of creation forming its body as it set about scolding them.

“Alright, which of you NPCs wants to explain why this sector just maxed out its complaints budget?” The Sky Voice swiveled its featureless head across the cowering villagers, somehow giving the impression of accusation even without the benefit of eyes or a face. “Because I’d love to hear it. Seriously, I am just dying to be enlightened on that shit.”

Shita swallowed, heroically making an attempt to address the otherworldly being of supreme power. “I, um, we just...the Players, they–”

“Oh Jesus, this is gonna take forever.” Sky Voice let out a sigh, its not-a-face shimmering in annoyance. “Is this the first time any of you have met a Mod? Do I have to waste time explaining what your whole deal is before deleting you? That’s messed up. That’s, like, seriously some Kafka-type shit.”

Delet–?! Shin shot forward, his arm raised high in the air. “I know about Mods! I can talk for all of us; there’s no need to do anything–”

“Yeah yeah relax already, sheesh.” Sky Voice lifted up into the air, casually floating around Shin for a brief inspection.”...right, I thought that was you. Ticket Number Seven Four Nine Dash Upsilon Iota Psi, right?”

Among other things. Not that Shin was going to confess to that. “Yes, that was me.”

“Alright then.” The Moderator dropped down to what constituted the Inside Place’s floor, its arms folded across its chest. “Well? Go on, then. Speak.”

Shin nodded, his back ramrod stiff. “Those complaints must be from Players who pretended like they wanted to learn Professions, but were just aiming to play games.”

“‘Just aiming to play games’?” The Sky Voice repeated, reaching out to give Shin a sharp poke in the chest. “News Flash, this is a game. They are paying us,” –It indicated itself with its thumb– “To play that game. All of you,” –It swept its finger out to cover all of the assembled Shinki Itten villagers– “Exist to aid them in playing it. Is there something you don’t get about that?”

“No, I do, what I mean is,” –Shin took a careful swallow, steadying his thoughts– “I mean they’re playing a separate game. We aren’t failing at teaching them Professions, they’re succeeding at frustrating us. Despite how things look, the Players are actually getting exactly what they wanted in the first place.”

Sky Voice gave Shin another poke. “Why all the reports, then?”

At that, Shin could only shrug. “I don’t know. They probably think it’s funny.”

“Hm.” The Mod lifted up into the air again, adopting a thoughtful pose as it mulled over Shin’s assessment. “So you’re saying that they’re just trolling, then.”

Shin hadn’t heard that particular term before, but he was immediately certain of its meaning. “Yes exactly; so you see that it isn’t our fault, right?”

The increasingly hopeful expressions of the other Shinki Itten villagers fell when Sky Voice let out a scornful tssk. “You think I’m going to go tell my boss that the complaints in my sector are the Players’ fault? Maybe I can sell that if this happens a few more times, maybe. But until then, the official stance is that this is your fault.”

It was as if the floor was falling out from beneath Shin’s feet. “So…what are you saying?”

Sky Voice waved its hand dismissively. “Oh don’t give me that look; now that you’ve explained it, I get the situation. And besides, it’s only your city’s first flag; I’m not going to erase the whole place after one flag.”

The huddle of terrified villagers let out a collective gasp, Shita squeezing her eyes closed as she gripped Koda’s hand as tightly as she could manage. Shin was no exception; it would take a greater liar than even him to pretend he wasn’t relieved. “Okay. Good. So what happens now?”

“Standard procedure,” Sky Voice replied, flicking open a prompt. “I’m going to disable all of your Profession Levels for a day, then we’ll just put out some official bullshit about how we’re ‘taking a look at crafting skills in blah blah blah to address Player concerns of blah blah blah’.” The Moderator shrugged. “It’s all bullshit of course; we won’t actually do anything. But sometimes shit like this just works itself out if you pretend hard enough, so it’s always our first solution.”

“Huh.” Shin tapped at his chin, head tilting as he considered that. “And since their actual goal is just to get attention from other Players, not being able to access our Professions for a day might encourage them to find other people to bother.”

“Exactly. If they really are just trolls. We’ll see.”

Was Shin going crazy, or was this actually a perfectly proportionate and reasonable response? Sky Voice wasn’t unequivocally taking their side by any means, but he’d considered their situation and was passing what seemed to be even-handed judgment. Could it really be possible that the beings that controlled the System were–

“Also I’ll delete like three of you. That usually shuts up whiny Players for a bit.”

Wait.

Sky Voice wriggled its fingers, punching something into its prompt. “Alright lessee. How about you…”

The huddle of villagers burst into distressed shouts as a hobgoblin lifted out of their ranks and into the air, pleading and begging even as the others frantically attempted to pull their neighbor back to the ground.

“Don’t need two Master Blacksmiths, that’s an easy one.”

Shita shrieked in wordless anguish as Koda was pulled into the air as well, her husband already beyond her reach no matter how much she flailed.

“Aaand sure, Animal Husbandry is a stupid Profession anyway; no one will miss that.”

Moots squawked as his feet were pulled out from under him, the old man wrenched carelessly aloft to join Koda and the unlucky hobgoblin. The rest of the villagers could only scream and cry as the three sacrifices went stiff, their bodies already flickering away to reveal the beads of azure that made up their very souls shifting and dislodging from within them.

Sky Voice began to wave its hand, then went stiff as Shin managed to grab hold of its foot with his final desperate jump. “The fuck are you doing?”

“I’ll fix it!” Shin shouted, his voice hoarse with panic. “I’ll fix everything, just don’t do it!”

“Jesus,” Sky Voice scoffed. “Don’t be a such a baby; the System will eventually summon up new NPCs to fill the–”

Shin wasn’t about to let up. The Empty Voice and the Sky Voice were already weighing him to be one of their ‘agents’, weren’t they? “Let me prove it to you!” Shin insisted, still hanging off of Sky Voice’s leg. “Let me prove what I can do!”

Sky Voice stared down at the helplessly dangling kobold, its blank face inscrutable. But Shin didn’t miss that the three villagers didn’t seem to be fading away any more. He didn’t miss it for one second. The longer the Moderator stared down at him, the more fierce hope burned through his despair, until Shin thought he may very well explode from anticipation. After what seemed like an eternity, Sky Voice spoke. “Get the fuck off of me.”

The Schemer immediately obliged, dropping gracelessly back to the ground.

“So,” The Sky Voice drawled, slowly circling around the panting kobold. “You want to ‘prove’ yourself, do you?”

Between gulps for breath, Shin croaked out a reply. “Yes.”

“You want to show how valuable you can be? Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And you know that if this is all a waste of time, it won’t just be them,” –It jerked its thumb towards the three still-levitating villagers– “Who pays the price for you, right? It’ll be a lot worse.”

“I know,” Shin affirmed, nodding his head in eager affirmation. “I can do it. Just give me the chance, and you won’t be disappointed.”

“Ehhhh…..” Sky Voice rubbed its fingers together, considering the ominous prompt window that was still open. “...Fine.”

The Moderator flicked out its hand, and the three villagers fell back to the ground, the rest of the kobolds and hobgoblins immediately rushing to envelop their friends in a fluffy crush of blubbering hugs. For his part it was all Shin could manage to not collapse on the spot, his knees weak with wild relief. “Thank you,” the Schemer gasped. “I won’t let you–”

“Yeah yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself.” Sky Voice floated further into the air, the golden outline of its body beginning to dissolve away. “I’m still blocking your Profession skills and making the standard announcement. Consider that your grace period. Because once your skills are back, if I get more complaints?” The Moderator’s outline had fully vanished, its voice still lingering even as the astral stuff that gave it form collapsed. “Well. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.”

“No,” Shin confirmed. “You don’t.”

The crowd of sniffling villagers parted as Shin moved through them, murmuring their support as a dozen tails whipped gratefully against him. He reached out to take a handful of Moots’s robe, his eyes stinging with tears. “Still holding up, old man?”

“Eheh,” the old hermit chuckled, sounding frailer than Shin had ever heard him. “Thanks t’ye, I am.”

The hobgoblin that had been selected couldn’t stop himself from shaking, seeming blind to the world until Shin reached out to take hold of his hand. “What’s your name?”

“Um,” the hobgoblin haltingly began, screwing his eyes shut before he could manage to respond. “Linden. I’m Linden.”

“You’re alright now, Linden,” Shin promised. “We’re all going to be alright.”

“You’ve got a plan, right Shin?” Shita demanded, her arms wrapped in a death-grip around Kota. “You do, right?!”

No. “Yes.”

The woman let out her held breath in a giant sob, collapsing against her husband’s side. “Oh thank the Goddess, thank you thank you!”

The crowd collapsed in at that, briefly a single mass of thanks and tears and support before Shin felt the world slipping away from him, and he was by the banks of the river once again. Everyone was gone, back to wherever they’d been before they were summoned. Even Shin’s Player was gone, having apparently seen no reason to stick around without someone to torment.

Shin was alone now. And so he allowed himself to collapse to the ground, dug his fingers as hard as he could into the loam, and let loose a primal scream of pure outrage from the bottom of his soul. This was Glandem. Shin knew this was Glandem.

But even knowing that, he still couldn’t grasp the full contours of what was happening here. The kobold wrenched himself up, flinging his two handfuls of dirt peevishly into the river as he forced himself to consider the scenario. Somehow, Glandem had organized these Players to mass report Shinki Itten’s trainers.

But as deeply distressing as this had been, Shin had managed to squirm out of the consequences. There was no way that a fellow Schemer like Glandem wouldn’t have known that this was a situation Shin could wheedle his way out of. So there had to be more. There had to be.

Shin knew deep in his bones that he hadn’t wriggled free from this trap. He didn’t even know what the trap was. He only hoped he could spot what he was missing before it was too late.

Goddess. Was it already too late?

—————————————————————————————————————

Wren held a hand up against the sun radiating across the waters of Shinki Itten’s harbor, allowing himself a moment to luxuriate in the warmth that washed across his body. Gods did that feel good. Nothing like this in Quercus. Too many trees. No ocean.

Quercus’s loss, as far as the elf was concerned.

“General?” Aryn’s voice cut through Wren’s brief reverie. “They still need your signature?”

“Oh.” He shook away his sunshine-induced repose, reaching out to accept the quill from the amused looking Banken. “Forgive me; I suppose I’m even older than I’d thought.”

The kobold guard grinned as Wren signed the goods manifest, his group of elves already moving to help the dockworkers unload the shipment of goods they’d brought from the farmlands. “You still look spry to me,” the guard offered. “If I’m in half as good of shape when I’m your age, I’ll count myself lucky.”

Another Banken leaned over to join the conversation before Wren could thank the young guard for his flattery, the kobold stiffening into a perfect soldier’s posture. “You don’t know the half of it,” the hobgoblin woman remarked as she slipped off her helmet, running a gloved hand through her inky black hair. “I once saw this man help push a battering ram through a foot of mud and a cloud of arrows. That’s absolutely supposed to be a young man’s game.”

“Hm.” Wren knew this one, this hobgoblin with her teasing eyes and warrior’s posture. She’d been the leader of the group that took over the fortress. Hilde? She was captain of Shinki Itten’s sworn guards now. “Everyone’s got at least one final act of stupid bravado left in them. I can admit that that probably should have been mine.”

Hilde grinned at that, reaching out to slap Wren on the shoulder as the old elf marveled yet again at the strange twists of his life. In a very real sense, this was the woman Wren had been born to defeat. And yet here they both were, Oaken Elf General and Hobgoblin Bandit Chief, standing in the bustling docks of a city that hadn’t existed that long ago and chatting amiably. Things weren’t supposed to work like this.

Was Shinki Itten insane, or the rest of the world? Because even if he wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, Wren knew which way he felt on the matter.

It would have been a perfectly pleasant moment, if not for the noises of alarm swelling up from the docks. Wren stiffened, instinctively reaching for the sword that hadn’t been at his side in weeks as he looked up. “What’s going–”

He didn’t have to speculate for long. A ship had somehow gotten out of control, careening at full speed towards the Shinki Itten harbor. Goods and stalls were abandoned as everyone rushed to avoid the inevitable collision, Banken and citizens alike doing what they could to pull the slow, the young and the fallen out of harm’s way.

Wren gritted his teeth, wildly hoping that somehow, some way the ship would veer off course at the last moment, would somehow manage to stop in time. But it didn’t. The ship’s hull screamed as it splintered through the long outstretched pier, wobbling off balance but still hurtling towards the harbor itself. Even with a massive hole gouged out of its side the ship would not be stopped, not until it finally smashed into the harbor in a calamity of flying wood and screams, debris raining down on the shattered dock as the deck of the ruined ship caught on fire.

And through it all, Wren could only stare as a lone figure struggled to his feet from behind the ship’s wheel. It was a Player, the glaring crimson eye floating over his head peering down in judgment as the man stepped out onto the prow of his ship, stripped down to his underwear, and started to dance.

“I’VE COME FOR ORANGES!” The Red Player screamed, dancing with aplomb amidst the fiery chaos he had caused. “I NEED ORANGES FOR ANYPORT!”

A small, macabre prompt appeared above the destroyed docks, though between all of the destruction Wren might have been the only one to see it.

>Trade Mission Begun! Oranges: 0 of 100<

But that wasn’t all Wren saw. Because past the wreckage, and the injured, and the flaming ship, and the wildly dancing Player, he could see four more identical ships appearing over the horizon.

Wren had the answer to his question. This was insane.