Shin clutched his robe tightly to his chest as he slipped out of the sleeping room, subconsciously attempting to stave off shivers that did not come from the cold. Shin had absolutely no frame of reference for what he just experienced. That was different. The Schemer had thought himself inured to the peculiarities of his world; increasingly bored by them, even.

Self-deception. Flattery. Arrogance.

That had not been like his many somnolent visits to the ModChat, or his piecemeal insights into the relationship between his world and that of the Players. Even when projected into the unknowable places beyond the material bonds of Magica, Shin had never once lost his sense of self. Even when the world and all of the niceties of logical surroundings were cast aside, he always had the foundation of remaining Him.

This new vision, though? The one locked behind the uncomfortably-familiar symbol? Shin hadn’t been an outside witness to that conversation. He had actually been one of the people having it. He’d peered through the eyes of the unknown man, so concerned about the stupidity of the name granted to the world he was creating, and even experienced his inner thoughts. Shin had felt a twinge in his lower back, and buzzed with irritation over his office’s shitty desk chairs. He could still faintly smell the acrid-sweet smoke from his colleague’s vape pen. It had all been him.

And in spite of his normally all-consuming curiosity, Shin was relieved to discover his synchronicity with that mystery man had quickly begun to fade once he was awake. It had felt completely real, then, but now it dissolved away at the corners of his mind, like some intense and then discarded dream.

He was already having trouble remembering what a ‘vape pen’ was, specifically, or why someone would want it to taste like pumpkin. Thank the Goddess.

Shin briefly stumbled on the steps leading down to the tower ground floor, fumbling for the railing just in time to avoid a fall. He ran a shaky hand through his long, unbound hair, forcing himself to confront the obvious question presented by his experience.

Had that man actually been him?

No, the kobold swiftly decided. Nothing was impossible, but that thought was simply too far-fetched to believe. Maybe there was some…connection, somewhere. To Shin specifically, or maybe even kobolds in general. Or maybe it was just some quirk of the System bleeding through, a link between the beings that had created this world and its current inhabitants.

But the moment Shin had experienced was clearly in the past; they had been discussing the actual creation of Magica, right? They spoke of the world as if it was a thing they were still forming. Even calling it ‘Magica’ was new to them. They had still called it ‘The L–’

Shin’s mouth went very dry, and he knew that if he even thought those three innocuous words in sequence he would vomit.

He needed a distraction.

And so for the very first time in his life, Shin was secretly relieved to step out into the koi garden and discover three Banken doing their best to corral an unruly Player.

“I’m not doing anything,” the Player harrumphed, the too-wide mouth and too-small eyes of a No One twisted into a mask of affront, “What do you even think I’m gonna do?!”

To his credit, the lead guard managed not to sigh. “We think you’re going to try and dump all of those,” he nodded towards the armful of charms the Player was weighed down with, “Into the fish ponds.”

The Player huffed. “Well yeah. Duh. It’ll be great for them. They’re Fish Health Charms.”

“Really?” The Banken tilted his ears forward. “Then why do they all say ‘Lightning Charm’ on them.”

“Uh,” the Player blinked, “That’s just their brand name. Duh.”

There was no holding back the Banken’s sigh now. “‘Lightning Charm Brand Fish Health Charms’.”

“Yes,” the Player confirmed, his bulbous chin set with the unflinching sincerity of a shameless liar. “It’s a great product with a great name. It’s great.”

The three Banken flicked their ears towards one another in a moment of silent communication, and then the leader took a step forward. “Sir, we’re going to need you to come with us.”

For a moment, it seemed like the Player knew the game was up. For a moment. “Okay sure I’ll totally comply–”

Shin’s ears shot up. Oh blah was he really going to try to–?

With an exaggerated flop, the Player pretended to trip over the totally smooth pathway. “Oh no whoops I slipped oh no~!”

Yes, yes he was. Blah.

The Player flailed his arms forward as he fell, an utterly transparent attempt to chuck his runically charged payload into the nearest pond. But the Banken weren’t fooled any more than Shin, and before the charms had even left the No One’s hands the Schemer and the three guards had closed ranks in front of them.

Shin clacked his teeth as he was peppered with the crackling projectiles, each delivering a painful shock that, while not much more than a nuisance to a fully-grown adult, would surely be deadly for a pond of simple fish. And for their part, the guards bore the unwarranted assault with grim stoicism.

The Player, however, pitched a messy fit.

“Aw fuckin’ seriously?! That’s SO not fair!” the Player wailed, petulantly shooting a middle finger at the crimson glob that had begun to bubble up above his head. “That shouldn’t be enough to become a Red Player! I didn’t attack the guards; they stepped in front of it! Didn’t you hear me say whoops, you fucking narc?!”

If the Crimson Eye that now stared imperiously down at the Player found that argument compelling, it gave no indication. The Banken, however, made their position abundantly clear.

The lead guard tsked as his two compatriots seized the newly-annointed Red Player and began to drag him away, unmoved by the criminal’s melange of threats, swears and sarcastic apologies. “I swear, I have no idea where these guys get their ideas.” He clucked his tongue in disapproval, then tilted his head at Shin. “Are you alright? Those shocks stung.”

“I’m alright,” Shin insisted. “I couldn’t let you and your partners endure it alone, right?”

“Sure, but we’re all in armor,” the other kobold pointed out. “You’re wearing a night robe.”

Shin blinked. “True.”

“And nothing else.”

“Um. Also true.”

The Banken coughed awkwardly, his ears flattening against his head in an unconscious show of embarrassment. “And, uh, also you’re…undone?”

“Eh? What do you–?” It wasn’t until Shin tilted his head and he felt the shift across the small of his back that he realized he was out in public with his hair completely untied.

How absolutely lewd.

The Banken was polite enough to avert his eyes as Shin quickly began wrangling his cascade of dark brown hair into a passable bun, his tail wobbling apologetically. “Goddess, sorry; I’ve had a really weird night.”

“It’s nothing,” the guard waved away Shin’s concerns. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot going on.”

“Brother, you have got no idea.” Shin gave a final tug on his hair knot, his eyes narrowing as he watched the Red Player be dragged away. “So what’s the current procedure for this situation?”

“You mean when a Player turns Red inside the city?” When Shin nodded, the Banken shrugged. “If they try to fight, we kill them. Most don’t, though; those we escort outside of the city and to dump at the edge of the zone.”

“And then the Wild Children take over as soon as they step foot into the forest?”

“Usually, yeah. Sometimes they take a suicide run at the gates.”

Hm. Between that and getting brutalized by Higen’s pack of woodland murderers, a desperate charge at the gates was probably the smarter choice. “Which one do you think that guy will try?”

“Oh, he’ll definitely slink back into the woods,” the Banken confidently replied. “If he was going to fight, he’d have done it already.”

Well, Shin still needed a distraction. “Wanna bet?”

————————————————————————————

Blackmire trilled his lips as she scanned the area, his elbows propped up on the fortress wall’s parapet and a spyglass pressed to one eye. “I dunno,” the dwarf offered, reaching his fingers under his cap for a quick scratch. “I don’t think he’s gonna try anything.”

“You’re too distracted by the show,” Bex lectured, waggling her hand for the looking glass. “Gimme.”

Shin and his new Banken friend huddled in with the two Players as they peered over the wall, Bex taking on an instructive tone as she gazed out over the scene. “Now, a casual observer might be drawn in by the huge baby fit being pitched right in front of us,” Bex noted, grandly gesturing towards the new Red Player as he threw an ungodly tantrum directly in front of Shinki Itten’s walls. “But isn’t he being a bit too conspicuous?”

“Hm.” The Banken considered that. “I guess it’s a bit odd that he’s been screaming at us for so long. Isn’t he tired?”

“And he certainly has a lot of very specific things to say about our mothers,” Shin noted. “It’s like he really, really wants someone to come out and kill him.”

“Ding ding ding.” Bex straightened up, offering the spyglass to the Banken. “And the moment any of the city guards step outside of the borders, his friends Cloaked behind that rock and those bushes will jump out.”

“Behind the…” Shin squinted at the rock in question, taking in a deep sniff. “You can smell them from here? Because I’m not getting anything.”

Bex shook her head. “Nah it’s not that.” She extended the spyglass Shin’s way. “Look for yourself.”

Never let it be said Shin wasn’t game to be paranoid about a rock. But even as he stared at the suspicious chunk of sediment through the glass’s magnification, the Schemer couldn’t spot what Bex was–

Wait. Was that–?

“There,” Shin announced, growing in confidence the longer he inspected, “On top. It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?”

“Yep, you’ve got it,” Bex confirmed, straightening out of her crouch. “They’re using Veil or some other low-ish Invisibility spell.” She took a moment to stretch, her movements unencumbered by her enforced gambeson tunic. “Most people miss that those spells project a half-inch or so beyond your body.”

True enough, there was no missing it now that Shin had seen it: a very conspicuous divot pressed onto the top of the rock, suspiciously shaped like a bottom. Guess even would-be-ambushers need to take a load off every now and then.

“Whelp!” Bex exclaimed, hefting her halberd onto one shoulder, “If they can’t or won’t use a True Invisibility effect, they’re probably no big deal. I’ll handle’m.” She quirked a glance towards her dwarf friend. “Unless you wanted another test run?”

“Oh, deffo,” Blackmire enthused, hefting his cannon. “I’ve got it worked out this time for sure. Watch this.”

Ignorant of the proceedings that took place on the fortress walls, the new Red Player continued to rant and rave. “–chokes on it! And anyone else who’ll waggle five dollars in her face! That nasty erph–!”

The Player wobbled on his feet, his eyes very wide and his jaw still flapping as it fruitlessly tried to continue on with its flood of obscenities. He coughed once, crimson dribbling down his lips as he weakly prodded the massive hole that Blackmire blasted through his midsection, and then collapsed.

The butt-indentation lurched off of the rock. “Oh shit! What the shit!”

“Don’t just stand there moron!” The bush shimmered in a wave of embers as a wild-haired Player appeared, an orb of churning fire already growing between his hands. “They’re coming down! You gotta protect me while I channel this shit!”

“Oh shit, right!” The rock shimmered as well, the freshly revealed Player’s shock twisting into a cocky grin as he watched Bex gracefully drop from the top of the tower to the ground. He drew his rapier, flicking it through the air with an expert’s finesse. “Come and get some, bitch!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bex replied, spinning her halberd out into a ready stance as she strode forward. “I’m coming.”

“Oh are you serious?” the Duelist snarked, scoffing at his inexorably approaching foe. “Polearms, for real? So off meta! Do you even watch DankEliteStrats?!”

“I sure don’t,” Bex confessed, her stride unbroken. “Tell me all about them.”

“Oh well they’re only the best channel for SURPRISE THRUST~!” The Player cackled in glee as he lunged forward, a razor-sharp aura forming around his rapier as it lanced for his opponent’s heart. “Taste it, you dumb bitch! Taste bwah?” The Duelist staggered as Bex deflected his strike across the shaft of her halberd, sending him stumbling forward. “Oh you lucky bitch, just try and BWAH!”

With a deft spin, Bex slipped the end of her polearm between the feet of the off-balance Player and hooked him ass over teakettle, the man smashing mouth-first into the ground. “DankEliteStrats sucks,” Bex airly replied, her halberd slicing through the air in a brutal arc to split the downed Duelist’s head in two. “Get good.”

“EAT THIS!” screamed the remaining Player, hefting his now massive glob of shuddering fire above his head. “EAT–”

“Abjure.”

“Aw what?!” The mage hissed as his fiery orb harmlessly dissolved, banished by the silvery aura radiating away from the pendant Bex lifted from around her neck. “Goddamn Paladins!” he swore, already weaving a new spell. “Fucking lame!”

“Abjure,” Bex replied, closing in on the increasingly irate mage.

“FUCKING CHEAP AS SHIT!” shrieked the Player as his weaves of lightning fizzed away. “How many fucking Abjures do you get?!”

“Toughness Mod plus Wisdom Mod,” Bex confirmed. “Also, Abjure.”

“FUCK!” The mage’s arrow of bubbling acid fizzled away. “Isn’t that only Level Two spells and lower though?!”

“Level Three for me. Abjure.”

The mage stomped his feet as the shards of ice that were forming above his shoulders cracked and fell. “God DAMN this fuckin’, this gacha game pay-to-win BULLSHIT!”

“I don’t pay to win.” Bex kissed her holy icon, its silver aura radiating even brighter. “The Goddess just loves my cute ass.”

“Oh fuck you,” the mage snarled, tendrils of bubbling darkness bursting from his hands to lance snake-like towards the girl. “Abjure THIS! DARK CARESS!!”

Bex didn’t bother responding, gritting her teeth as the grasping whip on her right bounced off of her silvered aura. She shouldered her way through the other, bull-rushing her way directly through the spell’s noxious grasp as she brought her halbred’s gleaming blade down directly down into her opponent’s shoulder.

The mage collapsed to his knees, wheezing out a final retort in spite of the gruesome cleft Bex had chopped through his torso. “Fuckin’...paladins…” he sputtered. “Fuckin’...needs…nerfs…”

As the mage crumbled in on himself, Bex turned towards the fortress and dipped into an elegant bow, the raucous applause erupting from the parapets growing even louder. “Hey! Hey Bex!” yelled Blackmire, insistently pointing towards the corpse of the Red Player. “Check the first one! Did it work?”

“Oh!” The girl briefly bent down over the remains of the man, inspecting the ruins of his body before straightening with a regretful frown on her face and the projectile that had utterly destroyed the Red Player in her hands. “Sorry dude,” she offered, unfurling the projectile to reveal a tee shirt with ‘I’m With ‘Sploded’ and an upward-pointing arrow embossed on it. “Didn’t work.”

“Gah!” The dwarf threw up his hands in annoyance. “That should have worked! Is it still enchanted with Auto-Equip?”

Bex’s eyes briefly flickered. “Yeah.”

“Well boo,” Blackmire pouted, sullenly reloading his cannon. “Looks like it’s back to the drawing board, again.”

“What’s this, now?” Shin inquired, his interest piqued. Not that Bex’s expert display of combat hadn’t been thrilling, but there was something in that matter at hand that had a familiar tickle buzzing in the back of his head. “Auto-Equip?”

“Yeah.” Blackmire shrugged. “It does what’s on the tin, basically. The tricky part is that it’s supposed to be something you put on your own accessories, not something you force onto another Player.” The dwarf pounded a fist into his hand, his eyes resolute. “But with the way I’ve set it up, the shirts should link to the target when their blood gets on them.”

“I’m pretty sure the problem is still Item Level,” Bex called out as she reached the top of the gate, tossing the gore-smudged shirt back to Blackmire. “The System won’t let you force someone to exchange an accessory for a lower-level one. It’d be busted.”

“Yeah,” Blackmire sighed. “And I can’t force them to equip negative effects of any kind through Auto-Equip, so the shirts are all iLevel One. I dunno. Maybe I need to–”

“Why does it need to be a negative effect?”

“Eh?" Blackmire squinted at Shin. “What do you mean?”

“Couldn’t you put a beneficial effect on the shirts?”

“I…” the dwarf scratched at his head. “I guess I hadn’t thought of that. Giving another Player a beneficial...huh. It would have to be–”

Shin wasn’t listening anymore. There was absolutely something here. He’d needed a distraction, something to shove his memories of last night’s sojourn into the furthest recesses of his brain. But now? Now he had something even better.

Now he had a project.