Chapter 74: Earth’s Shareholders, World-Destroying Magic 8 Ball

Kye stroked her face with her multiple tentacle hands. The fire trapped beneath her pink skin glowed when she thought.

"I’m pretty limited in what I can tell you. Your system is still very young, even with the recent investments, but it knows how to set the rules. All systems are pretty good at that." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Faust waved his hands, trying to hide the hunger in his blue eyes. "I know some basic things at this point. The Patrons are watchers from other worlds, kind of like intergalactic tourists. They paid to ’accelerate’ the fourth wave."

"The system also knew its Patrons wouldn’t be happy with how easily you guys ended the Third wave," Kye added. "The Sponsors also nudged your system towards this to test your world."

Something exploded in the distance. The ground was rumbling in the distance where the rainbow colors of the gate poured into reality. Fireballs, giant boulders and Void Eaters dotted the sky.

Kye moved to a new spot. Where Faust had noticed that yellow light flashes briefly. Then she rearranged the world, causing anything aiming at them to miss. Fireballs exploded impotently outside the city, and Void Eater bombs detonated in empty spaces.

The pillars of golden light still shone in the distance. Fix was bombarding the area with supercharged projectiles. His attacks passed through the shields Faust and Diego had planned around those places. But the Void Eaters attacks didn’t at least.

Someone needs to kill that Iron bastard.

But right now he wanted to know more of how the system worked.

"What’s the difference between sponsors and patrons?"

"Patrons deal with people. We’re generally companies that give gifts and sign specific players more for entertainment purposes. Stream Points are a lot more important than you can imagine."

"Sponsors deal with systems. They are like shareholders to the power and resources the system will create with a new world."

Faust raised an eyebrow. "What resources?"

"Not allowed to talk about that, but you’ll understand soon," Kye promised. "There are a lot of politics, backroom deals and esoteric laws for Sponsors that I’m not paid enough to care about. But the main Sponsor for this world is the Aural Council. They hold around twenty percent of Earth’s shares for the next twenty solars."

The Aural Council... Those were the guys that sponsored Juliette. This is starting to feel annoyingly bureaucratic.

"Why do they own the earth? I don’t remember anyone selling our planet?" Nirvana asked, raising her hand.

"Put your hand down. This isn’t a class," Kye grumbled, still mad at Nirvana. "Well you don’t really have a choice. The Aural council seeded your world millions of years ago. They would have 100% ownership if their history wasn’t so... interesting."

Faust rubbed his head. "Wait, who owns the other seventy six percent of earth?"

"Thousands of smaller Sponsors." Kye waved the question away. "My main point is that I’m here to offer you an interview. A good interview will launch your career to a new height. You’ll have billions of viewers. A wealth of information and power."

"But what can we use all that to do?" Faust asked.

"Um, it’s hard to talk about right now." Kye rubbed the back of her head with her tentacled hands. Her silver hair floated behind her like she was underwater. "But the more famous and powerful you are, the more freedom you’ll have to decide your fate in this game."

Faust nodded. It would be best to think about this a bit more about this. If it was like earth television he had to be careful what type of shows he went on. Because of what reputation they had.

The only reason a company would send someone into their game would be to get first pick on the best Players. How much did the Hierophyt Company spend to get Kye in here?

"I’ll think about it a bit more, but I’m interested."

Kye’s jaw twitched. She was worried about not securing definite agreement, this was her job after all. But Faust would not be hasty with this.

She might have also been using her Schema—The Arrangement—to try and get to a specific conclusion.

He had no way of countering that Schema if it was used. Faust suspected it was being used but the system probably had regulations about securing agreements from its Players.

"What can you tell us about the other patrons, though?" Nirvana inquired, more relaxed now. She sat on a giant piece of rubble, playing with her green military jacket.

I was just about to ask that.

He gave Nirvana an appreciative look before turning back to Kye. "Anything you can tell us will help us trust you more. But if you can’t say anything, we understand."

Kye smiled politely. She crossed her many tentacles behind her back before speaking.

"You know the saying ’There’s no loyalty among Patrons’. We’re all from very different organisations, so I don’t know too much about them besides what’s publicly available... and some hearsay."

She pointed up to Fix, the giant iron sphere shooting railgun bullets down at their safezones.

"Fix is a Kalan. Goblin seeds... that means they started as Goblins but have altered their species to stand out. That Iron Sphere is called Apocalypse. Fix is part of a caste of warriors Kalans call worldbreakers."

Faust’s face was filled with wonder. "You said he hates humans?"

"All Kalans do. They have old beef with one of the old human seeds. These kind of things happened so long ago no one cares but those few Kalans that have lived for thousands of years off hatred."

"That sounds so ridiculous," Nirvana said, glaring at the iron ball in the sky. "We aren’t even the same genus as whoever fucked with them."

Kye shrugged. "Kalans don’t care. You don’t want to see a Worldbreaker within two million kilometers of your planet. That was probably their braindead plan. But the system secured the spatial boundaries tight."

"Wait, that oversized Magic 8 ball was planning to go to earth," Nirvana said, getting up.

"Yeah, he probably used one of his equipment slots on something to cross the boundary to earth." Kye shook her head, letting out a disappointed sigh. "Your Origin Servers are linked over earth. It’s possible. And seeing a Worldbreaker bring down an unshielded planet is something you never forget."

Nirvana stared up at Fix with fury that could melt steel. She glanced at Faust, seeking his opinion.

"Soon," Faust promised, before turning back to Kye. "What about the other guy?"