Chapter 225: What Matters

Eli sat alone in his living room, long after the sun had set. His wrist implant flashed with several messages from both Derrick and Selena. He’d read them, asking if he was okay, but he hadn’t yet properly replied. The screen on the wall continued to cycle through various virtual news networks, all of which were reporting on the story of Makaroth’s son, and the showdown coming up between two of the top 10 streamers. To add onto the excitement, several other top streamers were announcing their desire to participate in the tournament as well, increasing the hype and taking some attention off of Aegis’ true identity, thankfully.

He made several attempts to get away from the news, though - eventually landing on a peaceful broadcast of an advanced farmer class player. It was a silent, calming stream as the player moved about his fields, tending to the crops underneath the sunny sky of the Shattered World online where it was still daytime. He occasionally stopped working on the plants to check his chat log and respond to some questions, all of which centered around farming. His peaceful voice and his passion for what he was doing somehow began to aggravate Eli after a while, though.

“He realizes it’s all fake, doesn’t he? None of that is real.” Eli angrily mumbled to himself. “The tournament, too. It’s all fake. All staged.” He spoke while eying his open Simbox. He glanced at the clock to see he still had a long while to wait before his party would be able to log in, and decided to lay down on the couch to try and pass the time. He was able to sleep a bit, but not much - the anger from everything that had happened was still burning inside of him.

After a while, he even began to feel anger towards his mom, as he thought about how she’d never told him about David offering her money when he left. How she stormed out and was angry at him, instead of David. Then he thought about Rakkan, how he wouldn’t listen to his instructions. If only he’d listened, it would’ve been fine. Finally, his anger settled on Makaroth, who set it all up. How desperate he’d become, and how far he’d be willing to go to manipulate everyone and turn them against him. More than that, though, was the fact that everyone was going along with him, and believing his words. That made him angrier than everything combined - how the entire viewerbase of those VGN streams were just eating up his words as he gave out apology after apology.

He heard several news broadcasts summarizing Makaroth’s apology, where he claimed that he’d accepted Aegis’ bet in a hope that he and his son would learn to understand each other better, only to find that Aegis’ anger for him needed more time to subside. That’s why he’d been leaving Aegis alone and letting him play in peace. He thought that now that Aegis had understood the game and shown passion for it by defending the island of Kalmoore from an invasion, they’d be able to reconcile their differences despite the break up with Pyri - but he was wrong. That was the jist of what Aegis had heard from Makaroth’s explanation as he finished up watching one final summary from a VGN broadcaster.

“All bullshit.” Eli shook his head at the screen angrily. One final glance at the clock told him that the time was up, and Derrick and the others would be back in the game world by now. He got up off of the couch and stepped towards his Simbox, briefly looking from the door, to Jillian’s empty Simbox, then back to his. He sat down, closed it, and loaded up the Shattered World simulation.

“He’s back online. The stream is going to automatically start. Are you ready?” Tommy asked Hae-won as she was leaning back in her broadcasting studio, picking at her teeth. She quickly sat up to see Aegis’ livestream come into view, showing his face as he loaded into the townsquare of Rene. The time was now early morning within the gameworld.

“No.” Hae-won quickly replied. “Cut the feed.”

“Heh? But he needs to get online to start defending himself against this bullshit Makaroth’s spewing.” Tommy retorted through a voice call with Hae-won.

“Not like this. Trust me.” Hae-won said as she saw a look of rage on Aegis' face as he looked around at his surroundings. “We don’t want people seeing him right now.” Hae-won concluded.

“Alright. If you say so, you know him better than me.” Tommy shrugged, shutting off the broadcast manually before it had even been announced to be online.

Aegis looked around at the many players near him - market stalls had already been repaired and NPCs and players were back to selling their wares. At his appearance, the NPCs continued on with what they were doing, but nearly all the players stopped to look at him. Most began pointing, whispering amongst one another.

“There he is,”

“That’s him, Makaroth’s son.”

“Can’t believe Aegis was actually Winter the entire time…” The mumbles and whispers went on all around him.

“Yo.” Chax called out loudly over the sound of the murmurs, drawing Aegis’ attention away from all of the stares. “Everyone’s waiting in the town hall. C’mon, let’s get some privacy.” Chax motioned him to follow. Aegis didn’t so much as nod to respond, but began walking forward and following behind Chax. As they left the townsquare along the northern street, the murmurs from players nearby didn’t stop, nor did the pointing. Eventually, though, they stepped into the town hall building, then entered the large chamber with a round table at its center.

There were a lot more players waiting there for him than he’d been expecting. Every member of the council of Rene was present, in addition to Quinn, Tullan, Sapphire, Herilon, Trexon, Artaphernes, and Christoph. All of his party members were there too, save for Pyri. There was murmuring from amongst them going on, but once Aegis had entered, it fell completely silent and all eyes fell on him as Chax closed the door behind them.

Aegis didn’t say anything, he just panned his eyes over the group, looking at their various expressions.

“I’m sorry. I found them watching from atop the mountain, but they had a high level wizard who hit me with a stasis spell before I could react.” Lina explained, breaking the silence.

“So it was a setup.” Herilon sighed.

“Character assassination, more like.” Trexon added, and Quinn nodded in agreement.

“Unlike the rest of us…” Christoph turned to the group of Night Hunters, “None of you seemed all that shocked to hear who this kid really was. Did you guys know the entire time?” He asked, directing his words at Quinn as many eyes fell onto her.

“Three of us, only. Just myself, Herilon, and Sapphire. Herilon learned it using a wand of identification, and Sapphire with her ears. They reported it to me, and I kept it secret.” Quinn explained.

“You didn’t think I oughta know something like that?” Artaphernes asked with a hint of anger in her voice.

“Why would you?” Herilon raised an eyebrow.

“The son of the most popular streamer walking around on our island is kind of a big deal, don’t you think?” Artaphernes.

“Isn’t that the exact reason why we shouldn’t have told you? He just wanted to play the game without that hanging over his head.” Sapphire replied before biting into a carrot.

“Not according to what Makaroth’s been saying. He’s playing just to get back at him.” Christoph replied while crossing his arms, looking towards Aegis. “Is it true? Is that why you’ve been playing so hard, hunting down mithril and voidsilk? Unlocking that rare class?” Aegis felt all of their eyes fall on him once again, but he didn’t immediately answer.

“What if it is?” He eventually responded.

“What if it is? That’d mean you’re dragging our entire island into a war because of your daddy issues.” Artaphernes snapped back at him.

“I’m also the reason the island is still standing. Did you forget that part?” Aegis retorted with an angry tone that none of them had heard him used before, causing several of the players present to look at him in surprise, including Amlie, Yuki, and Ruffily.

“I could argue that you’re the reason the island even got targeted for an invasion in the first place. Ever since you showed up, nothing but bad stuff has been happening, and now it finally makes sense why. I’m not interested in entering some PvP fight with Seraxus, or Makaroth.” Christoph replied, siding with Artaphernes.

“Yeah? Then maybe it was a mistake that I even started here. I can leave, if that’d make you feel better. So you can keep acting like tough guys while losing to any serious player that shows up here.” Aegis replied.

“Whoa, alright.” Quinn put her hands up and stood up from her chair. “No one’s talking about you leaving this island. They’re a bit angry that the truth was hidden from them, and you’re pretty pissed about the shit that Makaroth is saying right now. Let’s have everyone take a second to calm down.” Quinn shouted. Following her words, Aegis, Christoph and Artaphernes exchanged long tense stares with one another.

Eventually, they broke eye contact and Aegis panned his head towards his companions, seeing Darkshot, Rakkan and Lina standing near Snowflake off to the side of the room looking at him anxiously. It took him a moment of staring to notice the damage done to Snowflake’s wing, and he quickly walked over to check on him as he sat on his bottom, staring stoicly towards Aegis with a blank expression.

“How bad is it, lil buddy. Can you still fly?” Aegis asked the Gryphon, but he got no response as he walked over and saw the sliced wing. He rubbed his hands over it to see that the cut was clean, then turned to look up at the others. “It should be easy to fix, right?” Aegis asked. “Where’s the wing?”

“I’ve got it. That ain’t the problem.” Tullan replied with his head down, and once again the tension built up in the air as Aegis looked at all of their stares on him.

“What do you mean? Why isn’t he replying? What’s up lil buddy?” Aegis asked Snowflake again, but got no response. “Snowflake?” Aegis asked, and it finally responded by turning to face him obediently. It was only then that Aegis realized that the Elite tag was missing from the name above his head. “What happened?”

“Because he got hit by Seraxus’ sword, even though it didn’t kill him, it still absorbed his soul…” Darkshot replied reluctantly.

“It’s gotta be some sort of weird interaction that his sword has with golems.” Rakkan explained as Aegis looked down at the simple, mindless, personality-less gryphon. Once again, the room fell silent. “Sorry… it’s my fault, I taunted him after I beat Joltblade, but I didn’t think things would turn out like this.”

“Yeah. You didn’t think. Just like you didn’t think when I told you not to attack him in the town square. If you had just listened, we could’ve controlled this.” Aegis replied.

“If you hadn’t sent Lina away, we also coulda won. He was right in front of us, we had him. We took out those dark players, we coulda taken him out.” Rakkan replied angrily.

“Are you delusional? The only reason we lived that long was because he was playing the role of a puppet for Makaroth. Trying to kill him wasn’t the play.” Aegis replied.

“I’m the one who fought him the most here, I’ve got more PvP experience than all of you combined, you should’ve been listening to my calls.”

“Why? So we could have Kalmoore end up like Puagas did? A lot of good your calls did on that island.” Aegis replied angrily.

“Yo.” Darkshot quickly stepped in between the two with his hands up, interrupting the conversation. “That’s too far.” The two glared at each other in a moment of silence, and Aegis felt the eyes of everyone in the room on him.

“Nah, it’s fine. Good he says what he’s really thinking. Your priority is your daddy issues, not helping me take out Seraxus. So I think we oughta part ways here.” Rakkan replied before storming out of the room.

“Rakkan, wait!” Amlie called out after him, but got no response. The rest watched him silently as he left, until eventually Amlie gave Aegis a nasty glare, then took off after Rakkan. Once the door shut behind Amlie, he looked up at the stares on him.

“What?” Aegis snapped out at them.

“Uhm…” Chax cleared his throat to speak up. “We’ve already been handling the repairs on the damaged buildings.” Chax explained while motioning towards Ruffily.

“That’s right, woof! We’re using materials fro-”

“Why are you woofing?” Aegis interrupted her angrily, causing her to look at him shocked. “You’re not a real dog, right? It’s not part of the game?” Aegis asked, but she didn’t reply, instead just stared in shock at him. “And you, you’re always eating a carrot.” He motioned to Sapphire. “It’s stupid. So is your accent.” Aegis pointed at Tullan. “It’s all fake. It’s all just game, you guys realize that, right?” Aegis explained to them, but got no immediate response.

“Yeah, of course, but, we’re just trying to have fun, right?” Darkshot replied on everyone’s behalf.

“Whose having fun here? Anyone?!” Aegis shouted. “Who is having fun being tricked by 5 players, nearly losing all of your hard work and invested money? Who is having fun having a 15 year old on a powertrip coming here and having his way with us?! HUH!?”

“You need to calm down.” Herilon squinted at him, crossing his arms.

“Nah, I don’t think I do. I should’ve never let you talk me into playing this stupid game. This is all his world, all fake lights and electrical signals to our brain. A nice fantasy land where he gets to pretend he’s worth something, when he’s not. It’s all fake, and a waste of time.” Aegis shouted, this time directed at Darkshot who pulled back despite Darkwing cooing curiously from his shoulder.

“Look man, I didn’t know it was going to turn out like this, I just wanted to play with you. I didn’t tell you to make that deal with him. You’re the one who wanted to play the game out of spite, instead of just having fun with me.”

“Yeah, then I guess it’s my fault. I just played the game wrong, right?”

“No, that’s not what he’s saying…” Lina tried to defend him, nearly to tears as she watched Aegis’ anger unfold on everyone around him. Seeing the way she was looking at him was the last thing he wanted to see. Lina, who he cared about, looked at him with fear in her eyes. He couldn’t bear to stare at her for more than a few seconds as shame overtook him, and he’d realized how far he’d already gone. He panned his eyes around the room once more and saw similar expressions on Ruffily, Erikson, Yuki, Josephine, Sapphire, Tullan and Quinn.

“Forget it. Here.” Aegis quickly went into his interface and fidgeted around with a few buttons.

Are you sure you wish to transfer ownership of Rene over to [Chax - Level 150]?

[Confirm] [Cancel].

With little to know hesitation, he hit the confirm button and a look of shock befell Chax.

“Yo, Aegis, what’re you doing?” Chax asked in shock.

“What’d he do?” Quinn asked him.

“Congratulations, you’re the new Lord of Rene. I’m done. Playing this game was a mistake.” Aegis said with finality, and before anyone could respond, he disappeared from the game world.

“It’s for the best, isn’t it?” Christoph shrugged, breaking the silence after Aegis had left.

“Fuck off.” Quinn shouted at him angrily. “I took over leadership of this island under the condition that it would remain peaceful, and welcoming to all. That little boy has done more for us and the players on this island than either of you, combined. And now, when he needs us most and is hurting, you fucking chased him away.” Quinn roared with tears in her eyes, pounding her fist down on the table. “If he doesn’t come back, I’m exiling both of you.”

“Seriously?” Artaphernes looked at her with disbelief.

“Is the sky fucking blue?” She shouted back through her teeth.

“He isn’t coming back. It’d take a miracle. He’s not the sort to go back on his word.” Darkshot sighed as he saw tears streaming down Lina’s face, of which she quickly tried to hide before logging out herself.

“Is it my fault? Because I woofed?” Ruffily asked with a whimper in her voice.

“No, it’s not your fault.” Yuki replied as she and Josephine moved in to comfort her.

“Guess he didn’t like my accent very much.” Tullan spoke shamefully in normal, perfectly clear english.

“I like it.” Sapphire replied as she shamelessly bit into her carrot, making a loud crunch.

Eli stepped out of his Simbox feeling empty, wobbling over to his couch and plopping down on it and staring blankly at the television screen mounted on the wall. The stream of the farmer player was still on, so Eli quickly tapped his wrist implant to shut it off. He then leaned back into the couch and scanned his eyes around the room, spotting several medical textbooks on a bookshelf across the room from him. As he looked at the spines of the books, recognizing the titles, he recalled the contents of the books, and tried to focus in on it as best as he could. However, despite his best efforts, his mind was still full of the Shattered World online.

Spells, skills, strategies, locations, NPCs, players - all of the things he had been planning to do in the game world. Strangely, none of it truly involved Makaroth. He wanted to get his advanced class. He wanted to stop the Avatars, and help Eirene. Befriend the Wildlings? His curiosity still ran rampantly wild with what that might’ve entailed. What advanced class skills was he going to get? But it wasn’t long before his mind eventually wandered its way back towards Makaroth, and hatred seethed out of him and encapsulated all of his thoughts about the game. It frustrated him beyond belief, that he couldn’t control his anger any longer and let out a loud shout of frustration to no one but himself, punching his fist into the cushion of the couch.

It felt good for a moment, but only a moment, and soon the frustration was building up again. Before he could release it in any way a second time, though, he was distracted out of his thoughts by the sound of knocking on his front door.

Eli looked at the clock on the wall to see it was now 5 a.m. in the morning. He knew Jillian’s night shifts went on longer than that typically, and that she had a key, so his curiosity was piqued. He stood up from the couch and walked to the door, putting his eye up to the peephole to see Shinji standing on the other side in his plain gray suit.

Aegis opened the door and eyed him up and down curiously without saying a word.

“Hey. Hae-won informed him you'd just logged out, so I knew you’d still be awake.” Shinji spoke first.

“Is this about what I just said on stream? Did I break something with my contract? You got here fast.” Eli replied coldly.

“No, nothing like that. I caught a flight here the moment it happened. And, there was no stream, Tommy cut the broadcast when you logged in just now.”

“Oh. Yeah. Makes sense. You want to protect your image, huh?” Eli replied.

“Yours, yeah, but that’s besides the point.”

“Well I’m done with the streaming thing. Do I have to pay a fine for breaching our contract for that or something?”

“No, nothing like that.” Shinji shook his head with a forced smile. “You’ve already done more than enough for our Network. If you were really going to quit right now, we’d still be very thankful. There was nothing predatory about our contract.” Shinji explained.

“Then why are you here?” Eli asked him curiously.

“I’m here for you. Come on, we need to talk.” Shinji motioned him to follow before he began walking across Eli’s yard towards the street where Eli spotted a rented Autopod waiting for them. Eli hesitated in following, glancing back towards his living room where he’d be alone with his thoughts. After a moment of consideration, he sighed and quickly put on his shoes, following Shinji to his Autopod.