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Save Point: Dinner Games

Weave Connected Simulation

Keselt is playing the single most depraved video game Sethkill has ever seen, in which all of the female characters are potentially available to be cooked and eaten as meat. She claims it's for purely sociological reasons, to discover why anyone would ever want to play such a game, but Sethkill suspects she already knows why and that's why she's playing. In a society of absolute equality and openness, the occasional yearning for the dark old days, to own and be owned, to be available for sale and a little bondage and discipline, is quite tempting.

She's already theorised to him at least once that her discipline widely holds this to be why there are still so many prostitutes and not just sluts readily available on the street, given the fact that, by and large, they're actually mostly really nice girls.

Keselt curses fluently as her player character (who looks just like her) is forced to her knees, impaled, and turned into a delicious side of barbecue. Sethkill winces painfully, because that's something he can honestly say he never wanted to see. "Do you really have to play that thing?" he asks, already knowing her defense.

"Embrace the horror!" exclaims Keselt cheerfully. "Phrisk sent me this. It's still illegal in some regions, the penalty is being made to do useful community service by helping out with cooking actual meals for the Free Food Service. Some social legislator had a sense of humor and everyone else who didn't like it apparently approved."

"Yeah, well, just because Phrisk sent it doesn't mean you have to get into it quite so much. She is crazy, after all. She might just be having fun messing with your head, even if she genuinely thinks she's helping."

"I know you don't like thinking too hard about what's going on inside your brothers mind. It's a disturbing place. But in the absence of any sort of official response, someone has to try and keep him in check. He blew up a graduation ceremony out of pique, for Wolfmother's sake. And that was when he was younger and stupid, who knows what he's up to now."

"I'm afraid that if I get to understanding him too well, I might start to see the appeal."

"That's what this is for, silly. Scrunch over and we'll go two-player. Once you've done it enough times, the allure will be totally gone."

Things being what they are, a couple of hours later they have played untold rounds and are laughing themselves silly each time the other meets a horrific demise. "It's actually a very good game, or it would be if it wasn't for the subject matter," Sethkill concedes cheerfully, after Keselt successfully defends her menu integrity by throwing salt in his eyes and then stabbing him in the neck with a cooking knife.

The final score of their tournament is presented as a banquet, two long tables receding into the distance, in which the player characters severed heads are ceremonially displayed next to the large silver serving trays which hold the dishes each has made the other into. Keselts side of the room looks nominally more delicious and the startled look in her dead eyes is hilarious, so it appears she's won, if anyone can be said to have come out ahead.

"So, feeling any stray impulses to eat me?" she says with a sparkle.

"Only in the usual manner," suggests Sethkill, nuzzling outrageously down between her legs. The camera continues to pan slowly around the banqueting hall, zooming in and highlighting each of the dishes with scores and combo descriptions, but neither of them pay it much attention.

~*~

Sethkill descends the narrow staircase, hands still sticky, and indeed slippery, with blood from the unmatched grips. He's not used to using short swords, they lack the heft and range of a proper sword-spear in his grasp, and it isn't helped by the fact that one is single-edged and the other is double. Just holding on to the smooth hilts is a challenge.

Nonetheless, this is what he's got, because it was all that was available in-game after Keselt called him up and insist-begged that he join her and Phrisk in another co-op extravaganza of the sort she seems to be getting more and more addicted to. Keselt, it seems, has heard a rumor that there is some sort of special reward or bonus for completing the last part of the new additional content at realistic difficulty within one calendar day.

As he gets comfortable on the couch and interfaces with the neural clip, there's something very familiar about the environment that assembles itself around him, and he realizes that he already knows what she's dropped him into at the nearest fold-in point. This is the same game that Keselt chatted about with him as they killed time, legs swinging open teasingly over opposite knees, in strangely old-fashioned chairs at the Shadow Cybele.

It's been a few years since then and he has vaguely followed the progress of the story, which has evolved over more releases than anyone could possibly keep up with to a multi-generational saga that touches on issues of destiny and free will, and pushes historical truth to the very limits whilst still painting inside the lines, admittedly with conspiracies and secret cults.

He's impressed by the story-line and the handling of the content, but frankly there's just way too much stabbing in it for him to be comfortable with. It started off with a heady mixture that also included a solid proportion of sneaking and sex, but every time they up the challenge it gets more violent and a little more uncomfortably close to the present day.

Keselt still has him on coms and goes into a little more detail as he chases her marker and tries to catch up with her and Phrisk, who are somewhere nearby. The surroundings are a huge ancient stone building of some sort, but ineffably light, like a cathedral, with plenty of windows and open multilevel rooms and climbable objects to maximize the potential for creative mayhem.

Apparently the next arc of the game has already been released, but this is new additional content to the previous section of the story, designed to end exactly where the next one starts. Completing it will grant automatic free access to the multiplayer maps for the sequel, so it's both a promotion and a bribe all in one compact package, designed to build interest in the next release.

As for what exactly the bonus is or how it works, or how she heard about this, that is something Keselt is a little vague on. It's probably a deliberately released story, designed to be stumbled over by a selected number of interested players from scattered clues.

With a sort of cautious competence he stays behind pillars and in alcoves, remains in the shadow to either side of the glorious light, and casts about for a handy font or cistern to clean away the blood, which automatically raises his notoriety should anyone spot him. Nothing is to be seen but that may also be deliberate, an engineered fail to increase the challenge and match up the ending of one story to the start of another.

It takes him about ten minutes, but he finally catches up with Keselt at an elevated viewpoint a couple of stories up, overlooking the surroundings, which he finally identifies as an actual real-world location as he looks out. This is the original core of the university where he himself studied, modeled as it appeared centuries previously, and the building he has been wandering around is the Wolfmother Chapel where the graduations were held for all those centuries. Right up until it was blown to pieces.

He never really had time to look around it properly while he was studying. In reality there's now a field of grass and a few strewn stones with affixed memorial plaque, some distance under where he virtually stands, in what is currently empty air.

Should have seen that one coming, he berates himself.

Now that he knows where they are, he can also guess the probable historical context, though he hasn't actually seen the next episode yet or even caught a quick play through.

"...there was an infamous escape here," explains Keselt. "The city guard learned the location of a 'very much wanted group of killers', who had been betrayed by one of their own for a promise of silver and also 'a certain specific item' which was never identified. However, they somehow found out about the betrayal and killed the friend who had turned on them..."

Which would explain all the blood, thinks Sethkill, and the two mismatched cutting implements. He's really rather glad he missed that all-too-literal cutscene.

"...then escaped right under the muzzles of the guard in a blazing gunfight, after which they were never seen again. Basically, we just have to evade the guards, who are sweeping the surrounding area even as we speak, and who will be paying attention again as soon as we exit the Wolfmother Chapel, and then reach the front gates for the historically required blazing gunfight. Did I mention that we have no guns of our own unless we take them from someone?"

~*~

Hoping he won't get killed again this time, because it really hurt no matter how exciting surviving it was, Sethkill dashes in low, slides under the blast of a primitive rifle with poorly burnt powder residue scorching the bridge of his muzzle, clubs the guard with the pommel of one of his swords and then grabs him and spins around to use him as an improvised shield. An otherwise mostly well-organized volley hits the guard in his primitive protective vest, and he sags as Sethkill drops him, then takes advantage of the momentary interlude while they reload to dash past the lined up convoy of cloth-roofed passenger carts that the guard are using for cover.

A couple of mounted officers on riding jackals rear and curse, waving curved blades, but most of the more superior marksmen, along with their pistols and riding jackals, have been sent to sweep the various buildings, showing an initiative which gave Sethkill quite a fright as they rode about shamelessly indoors, forcing the poor innocent beasts up and down staircases with no respect for the conventions of outside and in.

The few who remain are happy to have a go at him and discharge their heavy pistols inaccurately at his his head as he dashes past them and dives for the exit point, a cracked iron grille covering one of the ancient waterways beneath the Great City, now long since paved over. The muzzle flash and clouding powder blinds him as he dives for the exit, and then everything fades to wire-frame, before falling downward through an unseen floor and leaving him briefly alone in a dark place, lit by distant faint phosphorescence around the edges and faint sounds of dripping and water.

He has to wait around for a few seconds, but Keselt suddenly appears, looking slightly scorched around the edges, and then Phrisk joins them mere moments later. Some scores and statistics are briefly displayed for their contemplation, then they get to enjoy the final scene, unconfirmable as to its historical accuracy of course, as their team makes its final escape.

It really is quite well done. Burly thug type (played by Sethkill) still covered in blood is about to embrace hot female killer (played by Phrisk) until he sees that he is still besmirched and uses the water in the tunnel to wash his hands all symbolically, swearing off violence for good. They kiss passionately and gratuitously, a free extra reward plus thrown into the mix. Phrisk is quite good at playing into her part of the scene and responds enthusiastically with tongue.

Hot female killers brother (played by Keselt) is not impressed and quite sarcastically points out that they might want to get out of here before anyone catches up. He has the mysterious 'certain specific item' around which the plot hinges and uses it to collapse the end of the tunnel, through unexplained means. Everyone is last seen walking off into the darkness.

There are also a couple of other characters in the scene, but it's kind of assumed they somehow already reached the tunnel on their own initiative and are not that important to the narrative.

~*~

Back in the phosphorescent place again, and with some time to spare by the real-world clock that is essential for monitoring your progress in compressed scenarios like this, an additional message appears stating cryptically that 'Kite Battle Mode' has been unlocked.

It seems that this is the secret bonus that Keselt was talking about, so they just have to try it. She selects the new option from the main menu and they find themselves in the Wolfmother Chapel again, only this time clean and with everything in perfect condition, gleaming in the light.

All around, crowding every conceivable surface, are all sorts of ridiculously destructible objects, sorted by color in a perfectly natural-looking way so each player has a primary shade of their own to destroy. There are wobbly tinted jellies on plates, elaborately painted fifth-dynasty vases, and all manner of assorted happily ludicrous objects. "Smash everything!" prompts a big banner hung rakishly over the muzzle of the Wolfmother statue.

They take this at its word and go loose on the objects in question in an epic display of mayhem.

The whole building is filled with targets and there's no way to miss. Sethkill goes dual-wield on a plate full of jelly and then scoops some of to throw at Keselt, only to get hit in the face himself as both she and Phrisk get there first. They hurl priceless ceramics through the air and destroy them in showers of colorful dust and mayhem.

It is significantly fun and leaves them staggering around yelping with joy, covered in all sorts of bright shades and happily breathless. Sethkill kisses Keselt to make up for the cut-scene, Phrisk insists in kissing Keselt as well, just to make the whole thing fair, and then they all hug each other and spin around in delight.

"I was hoping it might be something like this," exclaims Keselt with happy abandon, blinking dust out of her brightly shining eyes. "There's this sort of thing going where each episode has a hidden crazy extra in there someplace, just to redeem it from becoming totally dark and violent. I think this definitely counts."

Once they've all caught their breath, they notice more signs, which are taped to all of the ways leading out. "Come outside and fly kites with us!" they read, arrows pointing.

Brushing the dust off, they head outside, only to discover that the air around the building is filled with all sorts of kites and that they're not the only ones there anymore.

"This must be the multi-player mode," exclaims Keselt. "The main map is exactly the same as the final level, but as soon as you step outside it's multi-player instead of co-op." She seems delighted by the seamless transition to a wider playing field, and all the colorful kites caught in the sunset light, somehow holding their position in the breeze.

Another message appears after they've watched the kites for a couple of minutes, prompting that they should fly their kites and explaining how. Phrisk is the first to try it and when she does, her in-game player character disappears, replaced by a complex kite made of paper folded back onto itself in loops and covered in swirling neon traceries. "This is really weird," she exclaims joyfully. "I'm not the kite, I'm just sort of watching it in a disembodied third person view and manipulating the wind to make it go where I want. If I just leave it alone, it just keeps ascending up into the sky and I drift further and further away from it like in a dream."

Keselt tries next and becomes a kite shaped like a flying thing with the wings of a bat, marked out in shades of grey and silver, and ascends swiftly to the heavens.

It seems everyone gets a kite that is determined in some way by their playing style and actions in the game, although he couldn't even begin to guess how that would work. Probably a database on what constitutes an aerodynamic object is involved somehow.

Players from around the world are standing about commenting on what sort of kite each person becomes, and so he holds off until last, but he can't resist finding out. His kite is an impossible looking object made of slender sheaves of crystal with the edges coated in a thin rim of gold, like a dragonfly make of crystal that will surely shatter if it collides with anything.

He plays with the kite for a while, soaring up into the sky and watching all of the other kites loop, swoop and dart, and listening in on the com channels of other players as they become audible for brief moments when the kites draw close to one another. Eventually, tired from all the fun, he lets his kite drift away into the vastness and falls asleep.

The compression in the game means that you can sleep inside of it without wasting too much real time, although it doesn't really help out your body in the way that real sleep would. The players call it junk sleep, after an old term referring to passing out whilst listening to music and sleeping whilst having your brain gently tenderized by assorted audio soundtracks.

Nonetheless, he awakens minutes later feeling remarkably rested, and with a dream-like feeling that the weave interface all too often fails to capture, despite its similarities. The kites are a bright joyful memory that persists in the back of his mind while he goes about his day.