Spacebound Chronicles

Chapter 24: Top 500

Neither Logan nor Scott were natural brooders, even in all the still unclear divergences between their personalities, but the right circumstances and the right setting could bring them to brood for hours.

Scott provided the circumstances: the tension from work and the sparkling fall out with Joey. Logan provided the setting: a rock on the edge of a gargantuan waterfall overlooking and watering a verdant valley. In the distance, a humble village of alien NPCs ready to pay any adventurer who would help them gather mushrooms casted billowing columns of smoke into the sky.

Logan sighed whenever he watched the aliens exerting themselves in the rural labor, no more than green dots from this far away. A pack of blue and green stripped herbivores gathered to water by the lake where the waterfall crashed in a roar. A roar much like the one issued by the distant scaled predator overlooking the valley from the calm of its cavernous lair.

There was a time when that very environment was the essence of gaming worlds, not the plotting and rushed struggle for evolution, the intrigue and the infighting. Yet not a soul seemed to come here to Spruce, the bucolic armpit of the galaxy where you could get a pair of boots for helping an old lady load sack of rice onto her wagon, only two orbits and less than ten space-travel minutes away from Winner City.

Perhaps it was the lack of general attention that made Spruce the planetary heaven it was. Surely that was what made Logan choose that as his brooding destination.

“Logan Spacebound,” a youthful voice came from behind him. He had not heard them approaching over the melancholic stream rustle.

When Logan turned, his heart skipped a beat. Standing on another rock sticking out of the river, a hooded man in dark red robes and a black snake mask watched him. Logan clumsily scrambled to his feet and shot an energy beam from his robotic palm. The figure leaned to the side, watching the bolt fly by and explode against the trunk of an old tree.

“You’re a Chimera!” Logan’s voice trembled.

“I am, and I come to talk,” the man said. Logan, however, maintained his hand up, canon shining ready for another shot. The stranger went on: “If I intended to do you harm, this would not be the place. I don’t believe there are many permadeath triggers in Spruce. Can I brood with you?”

Logan’s eyes had narrowed to the same degree as his muscles had tensed. But why not? It was not like he could be permakilled in such a place, so he just shrugged and sat down again, legs hanging from the edge as water ran by both sides. Soon, the stranger jumped from his own rock and engaged a gravity-reducer belt, gliding graciously to the rock were Logan was, joining him on its edge.

“Penny for your thoughts?” the Chimera asked.

Logan remained silent. He could barely believe, let alone understand, what was happening. A friendly Chimera? In one of the least frequented planets of the galaxy? Brooding with him? Today of all days?

“I see, we’re shy today,” the Chimera spoke again. “Well, I can tell you my brooding reason, then you can tell me yours if you feel comfortable. Today a friend of mine sacrificed herself. Permadeath. But it was her or me, and she was the least vital to our goal… She understood, I’m sure.”

“You sound like a group of really great friends,” Logan snarked. He was about to log out just to be alone again.

“We are, actually. Lady Zin sacrificed a character to which she dedicated years of her life because she believes in what we stand for. Can you say all your friends would do the same?” the man asked. “Would all your friends in the Katana leave behind their personal desires and set aside differences for a common goal?”

Logan’s stomach turned into a bag of ice. A day ago, he would have answered positively. Now he was not so sure. No… He had offered to help Joey recover the Chimeras’ track, and in return Joey had bit his head off because of mistakes long past. He would not answer the Chimera’s question. Instead, he had a question of his own. He might not understand what brought the stranger here, but he would take something away from this.

“Why did she have to die?”

“As I said, it was her or me, and I was more important to the plan.”

“What plan? What did her death accomplish? I’m tired of your Top 500 secrets!”

The Chimera ran a gloved hand over the running water around them.

“She died so a spot would open in the Top 500,” the Chimera’s voice was distant, his masked gaze lost in the wavy stream. “So that we could offer her spot to you, Logan Spacebound.”

The blood was drained from his face, his mind trying to make the adequate connections, answer all the questions… But the questions could end. All the answers, about the Chimeras, about Snorri, about what really happened in Fantasy Stars, the answers to all he failed to understand were within his reach. He had always imagined this offer would one day come from Joey and that, together, Snorri and Logan would unveil the mysteries of the universe!

But that possibility was now gone. Scott even wondered if it had ever truly been a possibility. Instead, the offer came from the enemies themselves.

“You want me in the Top 500?” he asked.

“We want you in the Chimeras,” the masked figure answered. “You cannot have one without the other.”

“You sent Meron Trius to kill me two months ago!”

“You were never in danger. Trius knew you would replace him, and to keep you safe we anonymously led your friend Snorri Gian to him when he planned to strike you down,” the Chimera explained.

“Sounds like he was not as willing to die for your cause as your friend Zin.”

“Meron Trius was an error. He was our most recent member, he accepted to join us thinking he would be rewarded with riches and power, but never believed in the plan. We recruited him out of need, and he joined to further his own agenda. We terminated him out of need, while he betrayed us to further his own agenda,” The Chimera’s gloved hand rested over Logan’s shoulder. “Hopefully, things will be different with you. We value you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“But we do! We have been watching you since you first asked Potathunder about us. Meanwhile, you think you know us, when you really don’t. Do you?”

“I know you want to destroy the Solar League. I know you want to revive Supreme Commander Shay and end peace in the galaxy. That’s enough.”

“Ah, Logan,” the Chimera sighed while he overlooked the valley before them. “Snorri kept you in the dark about so much, and yet you are so quick to embrace his limited views and disingenuous assertions about us.”

“Then explain!” Logan ordered.

“First off, destroying the Solar League would defeat out purpose. We are a balancing force. As gamers, we thrive in challenge, in conflict. In its current state, the galaxy’s challenges are limited. The Solar League reigns supreme, and once you are no longer threatened by pirates, gangs and wild beasts, you stagnate. For us to ascend, for us to embrace our full power, we need conflict!”

“So, you would bring Shay back as a galactic threat,” Logan understood.

“Precisely. But the Solar League is currently too powerful for his return. Even if we did succeed in the process, the League would quickly crush him. If we destroy the League, Shay takes over and everything stays the same, just in reverse.”

“So, you need to weaken the League to even the odds. To drag war on… But what about afterwards?"

“Afterwards the Chimeras are no longer needed,” the stranger opened his arms. “Once the galaxy embraces its conflictual potential, we go back to being simple players. Some of us may join the war on the Solar League’s side, some on Shay’s, while others roam freely into a brand-new universe, making the most of the opportunities provided by chaos!”

The Chimera then stood up and turned to face Logan, offering a hand to help him to his feet.

“I have enlightened you, Logan Spacebound, more so than your friend Snorri ever bothered to. The only question that remains unanswered is whether or not you will stand by our side on our path to victory.”

Logan chewed on his lips while watching the valley. The masked stranger had indeed been franker than Snorri or Joey ever were, and he offered Logan something his old friend never did, and likely never would.

Logan grasped the gloved hand, and the Chimera helped him up. Standing face to face and tightly holding each other’s wrists, they exchanged a knowing nod of agreement.

“I wish I could show you my face. That I could share my name,” the Chimera spoke. “But upon our victory all masks will fall. Now stare upon this world, for once we succeed it may forever change. Tomorrow is a new day, Logan Spacebound.

“Tomorrow you embrace your destiny within the Top 500 players of this galaxy.

“Tomorrow you will be reborn a Chimera!”