Kayel frowned as he struggled with the controls to this strange games console he was using. While Kayel had played video games before, he normally played on his little laptop, or on Psiksi’s PlayBox, a Spast gaming system that Psiksi had bought Skyavok-compatible controllers for. The portal console Kayel was currently fiddling with was also made by Spasts (most digital tech was made by Spasts), but it was a Spast edition version, meaning it was specifically designed for people with two fingers and two thumbs. Kayel only had two fingers and one thumb. Weirdly, the console’s original owner had a similar hand layout, but Kayel assumed that Arkay just shapeshifted or something to give himself more fingers.
The console though (which, according to the sticker on the back, was called a GameTickle Lite) only had one game installed on it, and Kayel didn’t recognize it at all, apart from the title screen and the loading bar. Kayel had opened the game up, and it presented him with two buttons – to log in or to create a new character. Since Kayel guessed that he wouldn’t be able to log in under Arkay’s account, he decided to make a new account.
It had taken Kayel two hours to get through the tutorial missions. He just couldn’t work out how to aim without a mouse. Maybe it was a sensitivity issue or something, but Kayel CONSTANTLY overshot things and would miss constantly. He also struggled with the movement system, but that wasn’t too bad once he’d found a nice rhythm.
After a while, he’d taken a break, since the game was somewhat annoying him, but something had drawn Kayel back to play a little bit more. So he’d started up the game again and hit the log in button. To Kayel’s surprise though, he didn’t need to enter anything to log into his account. He just hit the icon with his avatar, waited for a loading screen and there his account was.
Out of curiosity, Kayel logged out of his account and went back to the main menu. This time, he clicked on the log in button and clicked on Arkay’s account. And, amazingly, Arkay’s account loaded in, with his chosen character appearing on the screen.
Kayel didn’t expect that. He also didn’t expect to be assaulted with so much yellow. Funnily enough, it seemed that Arkay had the same character Kayel had chosen, except way more customized and fully levelled up. Also, Arkay had decorated his space base or whatever it was called with lots of decorations, mostly strange, golden spinning things.
Curiosity pushed Kayel further. He decided to check Arkay’s arsenal. There were a lot of different suits, or whatever those things were. A lot of weapons too. Some of them went to level 40. That made little sense. And, of course, every single item was coloured yellow. However, as Kayel fiddled around with the appearance of Arkay’s character, he realized that Arkay had six customization slots instead of three. While four of those slots were different variations of yellow, the last two were different. Red and gold, and purple and silver. These two different colour combinations appeared a lot on Arkay’s other stuff as well.
Since Kayel didn’t want to get into trouble, he decided to leave Arkay’s arsenal alone and wander around his base. Clearly, Arkay was a fan of this electric starter character, in a room on the right of the base, there was a statue of that character, with little statues of the character surrounding it. There were two other rooms, rooms that had been locked on Kayel’s ship, and one of them was utterly disgusting, filled with weird tentacles, so he left those alone, but there was some sort of… shrine around the back of the ship.
The shrine contained three more statues, but none of them were the electric character. However, one of them WAS yellow. The other two characters were a red, fiery, somewhat draconic and heavily armoured character, and a rather vampiric-looking character with a long, purple cape.
Before Kayel could ponder things further, he heard a bloop sound. In the corner of the screen, a name appeared. Someone had messaged him.
It took way too long for Kayel to work out how to open the chat (he had to hit the pause button, then a back shoulder button, then navigate to the tab) but he quickly read the message.
IceShield: Hello! Welcome to the clan! I haven’t seen you online before!
Kayel switched through some tabs, to the one labelled Clan Chat. In it were several names, including the person who had just messaged Kayel. He headed back to the private message then very slowly typed a message back.
Litvir: hello i dont know wat this game is
A reply came back very quickly.
IceShield: Oh? You have a high level account. Who invited you to join the clan?
IceShield: Also, weirdly, you have the same username as my boss’s actual name. He plays this game too, but weirdly the name Litvir was taken. By you, I guess.
IceShield: Either way, nice to meet you!
Kayel hesitated, having no idea what to say. He clicked this IceShield’s profile and inspected it. Whoever they were, they seemed to be a somewhat high level? They were ‘Mastery Rank 20’, whatever that meant, and their character was wearing a coat with icy armour attachments. Kayel then checked Arkay’s profile. Arkay had clearly been playing this game for a VERY long time.
With a sigh, Kayel went back to the messages. But clearly IceShield had done the same thing Kayel did, and had inspected Arkay’s account.
IceShield: How are you the owner of this clan? That makes no sense.
Kayel sighed. He could have lied, but there was no need to. This IceShield guy seemed nice enough.
Litvir: this is my friends account. he disappeared but he left his game thingy behind. i wanted to have a look and play it. like, in his absence and memory or something
IceShield: Oh. I am sorry to hear that. Who was your friend?
Litvir: his name is arkay
There was a much longer delay this time before IceShield replied.
IceShield: Who are you?
Litvir: i am kayel. one of his mortal friends. well. kinda.
IceShield: And what happened to Arkay?
Litvir: do u know him?
IceShield: Uh, my boss does.
Kayel suddenly put things together, The boss IceShield was talking about was someone called Litvir. Litvir was Kuta’s sibling, the Decay Lord Arkay had once mentioned about being in some sort of relationship with.
However, a new beep distracted Kayel. The console was running out of battery. And he didn’t know if he had a charger. Kayel got concerned and quickly typed out a new message to IceShield.
Litvir: im sorry im runnin out of battery and i dont know where the charger is. but arkay is alive but disappeared. in hiding i think. ill tell u more when i charge this stupid thing.
IceShield: Well, I very much appreciate that, Kayel. Thank you for talking. Also, I’m happy to help you learn how to play, if you want.
Litvir: thank u
A low battery icon displayed, and the screen dimmed significantly, before booting Kayel back to the main menu. Suddenly, the screen went completely black.
Kayel sighed, then put the console down, before getting up and having a look for a charging cable. He knew he had one somewhere. But he was also aware that he had discovered something… terrifying…