I want to tell him to stop whining, but all I can do is lie on the floor, my arms and legs sprawled awkwardly out from my body. Anything more than staring at the mist overhead seems unthinkable at the moment. The glyphs vanished shortly after my triumph, absconding to other featured highlights and taking their light with them. I can feel the sheath of my sword digging into my back.
“Only option I had,” I hear myself say, almost disassociated from my body by exhaustion. “No way a standard strat was going to work on a dev like Hammer. He’s seen our kills before, knows how we fight. How I fight. Fuck, if he was a player, he’d be fighting us for the leaderboard. Had to try something new.”
“Well, it was definitely new, that’s for sure,” Wind says. “Don’t think anyone’s ever killed a dragon from the inside before. I’m surprised they even have that coded in as an option.”
“Lots of options,” replies Slend. “Point of the game. Find unique, get rich. People love watching unique.”
Wind giggles. “Heh, that was ‘unique,’ all right. We destroyed the simultaneous view record. Guess how many people were streaming us, Ash.”
“How many?” I ask numbly. I want to care, but I’m too tired from the adrenaline crash. I can feel the cramps threatening to overtake my entire body.
“Over three hundred million. It viraled like you wouldn’t believe—every regional ’Net picked it up. The Ashura, champion of SunJewel, leaderboard streak on the line, going one vee one against a dev dragon controlled by Hammer? You should’ve seen the socials. Nonstop wagering; odds definitely not in your favor. When he ate you, everyone flipped their shit, thought that was it. But when you cut your way out?” Wind whistles. “I thought the global ’Net was gonna crash. They’re already breaking it down into frame by frame on all the major sites. You made history, Ash.”
Wind’s voice is gleeful, the shared triumph of success. Behind her, Slend briefly nods at me, the closest she ever gets to a smile, and I try to feel happy for them. One of the main draws of endgame, and the whole purpose of the ladder, is that if you’re good enough to be featured, you get a cut of the ad revenue—more if you win. Devs have the same incentive, which leads to very real competition during endgame battles.
Three hundred million viewers is going to result in a significant amount for the four of us, enough to splurge for a few years, or, more likely, go into our savings to buffer against the inevitable shitty day in Ditchtown. Traditional sporting event attendance started dwindling once hapchambers became sophisticated enough, and now Infinite Game occupies the public area once held by the professional leagues. Turns out people love watching displays of incredible physical prowess all the more when there’s no actual risk of traumatic long-term injury, no messy cleanup of battered heroes who’ve outlived their glory.
Unfortunately for me, a significant amount only adds up to another month of treatment for Mom.
“I’m just glad we clinched,” I respond. “Means we can relax for the rest of the season. Look, I need to get hydrated, get some rest. You good with finishing up?”
“Yeah, of course, Ash,” Wind replies. “We’ll put your share of loot in the stash.” Slend waves a hand, then goes back to pulling out dragon teeth. Kiro keeps poking at the limp tail, ignoring everyone.
“Kiro, head out with me?”
A mumbled response, vaguely acknowledging.
I sigh, and trigger my logout sequence. Ten seconds later, the cavern dissolves around me, and I’m standing in the comforting space of my home portal, a cheerily lit grotto, fairy-lights hanging from the stalactite ceiling. Knickknacks and collectibles I’ve discovered over the years, each trinket a memory, fill rectangular glass display cases, bright pillows and beanbags slouching against their bases. Painted trophies of various monsters line the rocky walls, vanquished foes in crystal frames. Stone-arched doors lead to more memorabilia—weapon racks, enchanted items, long lost tomes, piles of gold; the usual clutter any endgame player accumulates in Infinite Game.
A new trophy pops into place, hanging in midair, then another, gifts from the devs to commemorate our achievement.
One is a stylized picture of a woman facing a dragon, sword swept back along her side, its bulk towering over her. The art style resembles a fifteenth-century painting, muted pastels coloring the vast majority of the picture, an electric-blue sigil shining from the dragon’s brow, emerald green shining forth from the girl. The sigils glow from within, clearly artificial, but somehow fitting the style. I hang it next to an abstract representation of something in vivid shades of purple and black, composed mainly of teeth.
The other trophy is a glyph with the exact viewrate number of our encounter etched beneath. It slots into place next to a row of similar icons opposite the paintings, a long line of shattered records, more trinkets for my hoard.
I slump into a deep cushioned chair, wincing at the pain in my legs, and reach over to an end table to grab the iron ball festooned with cruel-looking barbs and spikes that accesses my public persona. It’s what I use to log into the Game and everywhere else on the regional ’Net. Ashura the Terrible—my avatar. It looks like a medieval morning star, or a metal sea urchin, and the jutting points dig into my skin savagely as I pick it up. Almost a million messages stare back, the number rising every second, surrounded by a pulsating red circle that demands attention.
I start opening them at random, briefly scanning the contents, passing the time while I wait for Kiro. Some are supportive—admirers letting me know how fun it was to watch the most recent encounter. Some are spam—various phishing tactics and get-rich-quick schemes endemic to any grouping of humanity. Most are insults from Mikelas’s asshole guild, IonSeal, or boardshits encouraged by him, threatening to track down where I live, wishing the dragon had eaten my stupid whorebitch face and raped my corpse—and those are the polite ones. The socials have never been welcoming for those without a pale-skinned dick. I sigh, run my moderately illegal program that signifies I’ve read them all, and place the now-smooth ball back on the table. More spikes immediately start growing from its surface, like blades of grass in a time-lapse documentary.
I ignore it and grab my battered toy cat that the ’Net filters can’t see, a vanishing grin on its wide, stuffed face. A small prompt appears, and I rotate its ears twice, then pat its back. The cat disappears, leaving only the enigmatic smile behind, security measures disarmed.
My cat accesses a small private persona that bypasses all the usual ’Net filters, an even more illegal piece of code than the autoreader, and one obtained at a high price. If not for a friend, it would have been an impossible price. Private personas carry a twenty-year sentence in a gummie “reeducation center” for unregistered anonymity. With it, I can escape the world for a little while, run freely through any game or ’Net I want, gummies and adoring/hating public none the wiser. I don’t use it often, but without a place to hide I’d have gone insane by now. My portal is set up to automatically forward to the cat any messages that matter—much easier to keep track of important information that way.
Another automated reply from Brand’s avatar, letting me know she’s unavailable. I frown, delete it. It’s not like Brand to be out of touch this long without telling someone. A statement from my bank, new funds deposited—minus their commission, of course. I open it, look at the number. Quite a few zeros. Used to think that was a lot of money. Now it just means I have an additional month to find more. Refile it under “business,” along with a couple sponsorship offers that join the stack I’ll look at later. Never hurts to get something for free. A message from Hammer, wryly congratulating me on the win, hoping that I’ll remember that strat the next time we meet. I grin, face momentarily flushing, then tap out a quick reply, thanking him, and send it off. A couple pings from the few people I’ve allowed into my inner sanctum, words of encouragement, which I respond to with words of thanks. Friends are hard to come by, even harder to keep.