Interlude (1) from book 2

As I'm wrapping up edits to book 2 - Nexus Runner - Rampage - so I can prepare to send it off to my narrator for recording, I added some fun new Interludes. Here is the first of them:

Ysara was jarred out of her focused concentration by a flashing yellow alert. The loot box conditions she’d been finalizing slipped out of her control, and her main workscreen flashed a warning even as she received a message.

Emerald Green Siren loot box trigger conditions failed. If you do not craft a new loot box trigger condition in the next 12 hours, a default trigger condition will be applied.

“As if I’d entrust my creations to a default trigger,” the Shard Spinner fairy stated, turning her annoyed gaze to the flashing yellow alert screen that had interrupted her work.

Really good loot boxes, ones that only triggered when the right candidate fulfilled specific criteria, were difficult to set up. The world AI overseeing the current iteration of the game liked controlling most of the loot boxes himself, so he made the process of setting up loot boxes outside of his normal channels painstaking and tedious.

The process was doubly tricky when she planned to promise an epic-grade pocket dimension experience with that loot box. Of course, its secret purpose would be to lure bright but foolish players to into an arena where she could judge their potential herself.

Some of the most promising players were displaying abilities outside of the normal curves. They could simply be early prodigies, but there were more sinister possibilities she alone was best equipped to detect. Why take chances when she could couple her investigation with unique battle challenges that would delight the AI and wow viewers at the same time? Orchestrating such a moment despite all the restrictions the AI placed around such battles would elevate the experience to entire new levels.

The interruption of her work was annoying, but it also served as a reminder not to allow herself to grow complacent. Her job might be engaging, but it was still just a cover for her true mission.

That flashing alert came from her second-iteration rune sniffer. Her original sniffer had triggered the AI’s attention and been scrubbed. Despite his youth and isolation from much of the multiverse, he was proving quite capable, which made the challenge of penetrating his secret little experiments all the more interesting.

It looked like the investment in time to insert the advanced rune sniffer was about to begin paying off. A new breach between the game environment and the inner world had just occurred, but again no announcements were transmitted through standard channels. This was the second breach she’d discovered. One might be a fluke, but two or more confirmed a pattern. The AI was definitely blocking the alerts.

What was he thinking? Experimenting with contestants was normal, and she appreciated the AI’s interest in establishing a wide sample set of abilities and situations. Meddling with the security of the inner world was beyond foolish. Ysara could not tolerate foolishness. There was far too much at stake, especially this time.

In moments, Ysara scanned secondary lists and logs, but found nothing useful. All data regarding the breach had been totally erased. Again, the AI was proving resourceful and clever. She had never been so totally blocked, and the lack of information was becoming a bit annoying.

After glancing around to ensure no one was showing any interest in her workstation, Ysara activated her deeper infiltration programs using her secret class. She hadn’t actually expected to find any challenges worthy of expending the resources to connect across planes to activate her mightiest infiltrators and allowed a momentary smile of satisfaction to play across her lips.

The sniffers were data-reading spirits she’d developed in one of the alternate dimensions she’d brought with her to Arasha. They existed in a dimension that only partially overlapped with the game world’s space, allowing them to draw data across the ultra thin boundary while remaining invisible to even the AI’s vaunted senses.

Accessing them and directing their research consumed a huge portion of her mana pool and most of her concentration. It was such a draining investment, it could even threaten to leave cracks in her simple fairy worker facade.

Should her true class and purpose be discovered, her ability to function would be compromised. The consequences of failing such a mundane task of babysitting a game world could destroy her career. The sensible thing to do would be to ignore the tantalizing trail of mystery and leave the AI to its games.

And yet, one could not progress without challenging themselves. So she focused, pouring her will and mana across flimsy barriers of reality to her infiltration spirits. It took only a moment to get a result, but she could not tell if it suggested good news or bad.

The data was inconclusive. Pursuing the mystery was still little more than a diversion, a risk that she still felt was manageable. It was also proving far more entertaining than she’d expected, and that was a wonderful boon.

The little information she received about ongoing negotiations among the Tenth Horizon suggested timetables were indeed accelerating toward pivotal events. Not being involved was driving her mad, but the mystery of the AI’s elaborate little game helped her stay in character.

Perhaps she should double down on that? Why not find a way to join the AI’s game? Now, that would indeed be fun, and she might get to finally pull Meredith Dayne out of her closet.

* * * *

“Very well, meeting adjourned,” Malric stated from where he floated slightly above the High Council of Currents.

Their vast meeting chamber, deep within the Prime Reef, was sheathed in brightly-colored coral and speckled with glowing gemstones larger than Malric’s head. The warm waters flowed past, heavy with thick mana that pulsed against his skin in comforting waves.

A 10-foot bubble of air hung just below him, its surface glittering like diamonds as the many vid feeds used in the meeting winked out. The six senior Currents floated in a loose circle around the bubble, all hovering at precisely equal heights, slightly below his position.

The meeting had gone well, despite ongoing fiscal challenges. Deep Current had no new governance issues that required his direct attention, while Trade Current was showing a solid 5% increase in month-over-month sales channel growth. War Current was gearing up for a potential hostile takeover of Labawan, and their mercenary forces were at peak performance numbers.

That position of strength also provided a safety net should their highly leveraged position become known to the few rivals positioned to make a hostile move. As much as Malric hated to acknowledge the possibility of short-term weakness, he had not risen to Archon without having layers of backup plans always in place.

Flow Current was initiating a new marketing campaign across hundreds of mid to high-tiered worlds to boost sales. That would also position them perfectly should the game result in the enormous wins he was betting so heavily on. Echo Current was pursuing new rumors of activity among the lords of the highest tiers that suggested unprecedented opportunities in the near future.

Best of all, Harvest Current had shared its findings of the most interesting underwater species of Earth. Some were quite spectacular. No Pearl teams could be dispatched to the planet yet to confirm potentiality, but early projections suggested exceptionally high mutation adaptability. Several of Malric’s wealthiest buyers would pay through the blowhole to gain early access to such treasures.

As the Currents floated up from the bubble, their fine robes and suits rippling sightly with the gentle movement of the waters, Malric raised his voice and intoned the traditional corporate slogan.

“The Tide Advances.”

“We own the Tide,” the Currents all responded together.

With that, they separated and headed for the exit vents. Malric was about to follow, but paused to answer a direct video chat request from Selyra. She knew better than to disturb him during a High Currents meeting. Timing the call for the moment the meeting ended suggested it was of extreme importance.

A screen appeared on the front face of the silvery bubble floating before him. Selyra was not at her desk deep under the Azure Mantle, but sat at a small coral table in a richly-appointed, if boring office on Marrakar, one of the few aboveground continents on Ocevaris. Beside her sat Bravess Klymar, the Undertide of the Crowned Hunt pods.

Bravess was easily twice Selyra’s size, his deep blue uniform coat contrasting with her dress of constantly-shifting iridescent scales. His indigo skin was marked with faint silver streaks along his jaw and down to his collarbone, a visible indication of his high heritage that he took exorbitant pride in displaying.

“You have an update?” Malric asked, forcing his voice to remain perfectly calm, despite his internal eagerness to hear about the game.

One of Bravess’s best qualities was his preference for diving right to the point. The Undertide’s sea-green eyes sparkled with streamers of auburn, suggesting he was unusually happy. Bravess was methodical to a fault, and usually avoided any emotion-based decisions, so something important must have happened to rile him up.

Selyra said, “Indeed, sir. The research pods found another anomaly.”

Bravess flicked a glance at her, but did not display even a hint of annoyance at her stealing some of his thunder. “The decision to assign a double pod to the human named Lucas is proving wise. There was another glitch in the vid feeds, similar to the original aberration you received, along with a second one that might have been related.”

That time, Bravess did not quite conceal his annoyance that one of his Tidekeepers had leaked the original vid to Selyra.

She ignored the look. “The full vid feed will be waiting for you when you return to your office, but Bravess and I agreed that you would like a summary update.”

“Indeed. I am intrigued. The human yet lives?”

“Yes, despite some very challenging encounters, he has shown remarkable skill and bravery,” Bravess said. “Against long odds, he survived to stage 2. There, he has not only encountered both of the floor bosses already, but survived both encounters. He reached level 12, and his power ramp-up is already noticeable. Projections suggest his growth will spike dramatically in the short term.”

Malric blinked slowly in a display of growing excitement. “That is indeed interesting.”

Bravess shifted slightly in discomfort at Malric’s open emotions. He cleared his throat, bubbles floating around him for a second before his re-moisturizers captured the water for recycling into his system, and that settled him. Malric didn’t need leaders who lost their composure so easily.

Bravess said, “Again we witnessed a glitch, but this time we had already applied for alternate frequency analysis ahead of time. There is a great deal of interference, but both wide spectrum light analysis and mana density calculations suggest the human experienced a temporal anomaly.”

“What kind of anomaly?” More and more interesting.

“A short-range spatial tear is most likely, but all direct evidence has been repressed,” Bravess said.

Selyra added. “Of more interest is one scanner that caught a glimmer of what could only be reflected mana from within an inner-world corridor.”

“That is not confirmed,” Bravess interrupted, not hiding his annoyance. He would hate to have his name associated with something so scandalous as false data.

“Analysts suggest chances of interaction between the human and at least one higher-tiered denizen of the inner world at above 60%,” Selyra countered.

Bravess started to argue that such a low number did not merit inclusion in the report, but Malric tuned him out. The possibility was intriguing. They already suspected the AI had submitted the man Lucas to an early tier-1 evolution.

Despite the many challenges such an early and unprecedented evolution would entail, he had survived to the second stage. To what purpose would the AI also draw a contestant into the inner world? Such a breach was not entirely unprecedented, but beyond extreme. Could the AI be somehow coaching or preparing the human for even greater power?

If he continued to progress rapidly, the human would no doubt join the tiny number of distinct forerunners already emerging for Earth. Malric actually allowed himself the briefest of smiles, and the faint flicker of hope he’d been so carefully nursing since that original vid feed brightened just a bit.

Thankfully, Bravess and Selyra were too busy arguing to note the astonishing display of emotion. Malric interrupted them, ordering, “Assign a third pod to Lucas and send me updated reports of the other primary candidates.”

“That report will not be reliable for at least a week,” Bravess protested.

“Mark it as draft if you must, but I want real-time updates every evening before the third tide.”

Bravess’s huge eyes flashed with auburn flickers, an unusual outward sign of how much the order shocked him. He’d have to deal with it, because they could not hesitate. Not this year, not during this game.

Too much was going on in the highest tiers. Selyra’s highest-placed spies had confirmed what Echo Current had heard about pending major decisions that could affect even mighty corporations like Neptrel. The timing could not have been worse.

They needed to win control of Earth, and if the man Lucas proved his worth over the coming days, Malric would be ready to move.