As he makes his way to the meeting point, Ryuk’s thoughts bounce between the last time he and Tamana fought together in the game and watching her surrealistic slow-motion death by subway train.
Maybe if he had convinced her to stay logged in for longer, things would have played out differently. Maybe she’d be alive and who knows, maybe they’d be having breakfast right about now. There was a Cafe Colorado between their homes in Tokyo. A little cluttered, but nice. Maybe they’d be there now if she was still alive.
Emphasize differences. Ryuk is pretty sure Hajime’s pithy little oblique card simply means to know one’s enemy, even if the humandroid tries to make it sound like some deep philosophical insight or something. Then again, it could mean anything and maybe that is the implicit meaning – any situation applies.
The clock tower bell announces that it is indeed the Hour of the Morning Fire, and as it sounds, the love crows explode into the air, wheel, turn, and form ever-shifting Rorschach patterns of hidden deeper meanings.
Ryuk checks their group finances and discovers that the guild bank account is nearing rock bottom. Even with the cut that Hiccup stole, they should still be a couple thousand rupees up.
He kicks an acorn that has fallen from one of the trees in the square. I need to speak to a guild banker about putting authorized user controls on the guild’s funds.
He crunches the next acorn he sees and grinds it under his heel.
As he waits, Ryuk watches an NPC carriage driver have a one-sided argument with a magnificent white Clydesdale. The driver scolds the stubborn draft-horse to no avail. He pleads, cajoles and shakes his finger at the creature’s snout, tugs on the horse’s reins.
The impassive mountain of muscle snorts, tosses his head and refuses to budge. At least I’m not the only one with problems, Ryuk finds himself thinking, then he feels stupid for even thinking something so petty.
His hands in his pockets, he rocks back and forth on his heels, watching a particular cloud take shape that reminds him of Softbank’s curved equal sign logo. A prompt appears, asking him if he’d like to know more about SoftBank Quickstream InstaInvest Services.
Ryuk selects no and the ad flutters away.
Real world advertising is banned in some cities in the three floating continents of Tritania, but not all of them. The adverts target the average consumer rather than specific individuals, and they are much worse around major shopping hubs.
The only thing good about the advertising is that sometimes the corporate sponsors pay to have custom quests that offer exclusive, heavily logoed items as rewards.
Once, Ryuk completed a Jolt Cola sponsored quest that awarded him a pair of nunchucks that flashed the Jolt Cola logo and loudly announced ‘JOLT’ every time they connected with an enemy. He always felt like an unpaid corporate shill and would have scrapped the chucks, but they gave him 35% more attack power than whatever enemy he was up against. The chucks were, in three words, blatant yet badass.
A tap on his shoulder and Ryuk spins around with his slingshot aimed at the ready. He didn’t get a marble in the slingshot’s pouch, but it’s the thought that counts.
“I wasn’t expecting you to come from that direction,” he says as he lowers his ammo-less weapon. Something taps Ryuk’s right cheek. He’s just about to tell Zaena to keep her ghost limbs to herself when FeeTwix produces a canvas carrier bag.
“I got healing potions out the wazoo, all delivered to the hotel room, by the way, so we could get here in time. Call me fantasy Festivus Phil. Wait, do Japanese people celebrate Chrismahanukwanzivus?” He grins.
“Not in the way you think.”
“That reminds me, you don’t need any sort of marbles, do you?”
“They are unlimited. When I get a new marble, I also get a new pouch on my belt. As I’ve said before – well, I think I told you – my only limitation is my weapon.”
FeeTwix’s eyes turn blue. “Those will soon be problems of the past. The fan who’s making your marble gun messaged me, and she promises to have a working version by the end of the day, maybe sooner. She’s charging us for it, but I’ll pay her out of the royalties I’ll make for today’s advertisements. So no worries there; just expect just a bit more selling than normal.”
“You’re such a cutie.” Zaena pulls FeeTwix to her and kisses him. FeeTwix shoots Ryuk a thumb’s up mid-kiss.
“Another thing,” FeeTwix says, post-kiss, “well, just show him.”
Zaena smiles and her cheeks lift, raising the tips of her pointed ears through her orange mop of hair. She holds her hand out at Ryuk and drops her wrist, revealing an odd ring shaped like a wilted flower.
He gasps. “You’re engaged?”
FeeTwix’s eyes flash from black to blue. “What?! No! That’s not what that is.”
Zaena glances sharply from FeeTwix back to Ryuk. “It’s a Sotlian Pocket Sauna.” She touches the tip of the wilted flower and a sparkling ring of blue energy takes shape above her hand. “Touching it will transport us to a rejuvenating sauna that will heal our hit points completely, if we stay for thirty minutes.”
“And how many times can you use it per day?”
“Once, so we should use it wisely.”
Hiccup approaches the three wearing a dark gray robe with a hood that obscures his face but does nothing to conceal his rather unique style of ambulation. “Over here!” FeeTwix shouts and waves.
“For fick’s sake, Twixy! Why not break out the marching band with sparklers and Mardi Gras floats, why dontcha? How about a sign that reads HICCUP THE FICKIN’ GOBLIN?” He lowers his voice as his eyes dart left and right. “It’s like this: there are a couple of big-ass, bad-tempered orcs looking for me, and I’d really really really like to get the hell out of Sotla before they find me. Y’know – what happens in Sotla stays in Sotla, right?”
FeeTwix laughs. “Babe, this is Hiccup, the third – and surliest – member of the Mitherfickers. Check out his mechanical arm. Cool, huh?”
“I’m the second member, I’m not surly, and never mind the arm!”
Zaena rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
“Seriously, we need to fickin’ leave now, as in right now, as in let’s go-go-GO!”
“Drink up, pal.” FeeTwix produces a half-finished healing potion. Hiccup’s fingers are tattered and crusted with dried blood; his nails are notable for their absence.
“What happened to your nails?” Ryuk asks.
“Lost them in a bet with an ink shadow. Can you believe that fickhole strung my nails on a necklace right in front of me? What kind of twisted sicko does that?” He chugs the potion and his nails re-form, but not as long and sharp as they used to be.
“I thought you were with some orc … um, entertainers or something,” Ryuk says.
“Look kid, one day when your balls drop, you’ll understand that sometimes a goblin’s gotta do what a goblin’s gotta do, and that when an opportunity presents itself, you go with it. After all, what’s life if it isn’t about losing stupid, painful bets and ending up in an orc’s den handcuffed and pony-pegged by a leather-clad slag while your chalupa is clamped in a bench vise?”
Ryuk gives him a confused look.
“Ha! Kidding, I’m kidding, that’s not what happened last night. Well, not all of it. Well, some of it. Actually most of that happened but that’s not important now. Um … ” He takes a deep breath. “Where was I?”
“Say hi to your fans,” FeeTwix says, his eyes suddenly black.
“Fans?”
FeeTwix taps his temple.
“Crap, early onset Goblinheimer’s is no joke, believe you me. Look, kiddos, as much as I’d love to fill you in on all the juicy details of last night, we really need to get out of town now. Like really. Seriously. Let’s go now. And Twixy, tell your fans to go fick themselves.”