Melody and Harmony: page 12

It was a favor big enough to earn him the time off for the festival, without loosing his new job. The club owner called it by one of the ancient slang names, "Mary Jane". He didn't say what he needed it for, and Aaron didn't ask. He didn't say how much and Aaron didn't ask. All the club owner told him was where to go, when to be there, and who he was meeting for the exchange.

The last thing the club owner did before showing him the door was hand him four cash cards, each of them held more money than Aaron could spend in half a year. The club owner handed them over like he was passing out club fliers and saw the look on Aaron's face. "You may work for favors but these will open and close doors you'd never be able to approach otherwise." he explained.

Something in the back of his mind started screaming. This was just a simple exchange, what doors would he possible need this money money to handle? His conscious mind chalked the oddity up to the differences in the way rich people valued things and took the cards. "This much will make us targets of every low life with a cred scanner between here and any of your 'doors'" He used air quotes for the club owners benefit.

"If I thought you couldn't handle thugs and punks, I wouldn't have asked you back." he said with finality and turned his attention back to his other work. Aaron left quietly.

Back at the table he filled his friends in using their shorthand mumble toned garbage speak. Words within words, verbal misdirects, and empty trap sentences to deter anyone who might have been listening. It had taken them years to develop the language, but it had never failed them.

They finished their drinks and left the Shadow Church one at a time, each of them went in different directions at different times, then when they were sure they weren't being followed they met at their agreed upon location.

It was the last time the night went according to plan.

Spoonerville: Page 10

And that's how Rodney spent the last two weeks of summer break. Eating pizza and playing video games. He didn't know it at the time but it was easily the longest period of normalcy in Spoonerville in years, and before he could even really begin to appreciate it, it was over. The school year started on Monday.

The spoonerville education system consisted of exactly three hundred and thirteen kids in grades K through twelve. Putting about twenty three kids in each grade. These kids had grown up together from birth in most cases. They knew each other intensely and as they got older, intimately. So when someone left it was like a death in the family, and when someone new arrived it was cause for celebration, mostly.

Social ecosystems are delicate, living things with a thousand moving parts. Change any one previously existing variable and you risk throwing a stable system into chaos. Add and entirely new set of variables and you guarantee chaos. Good administrators spend their career fighting against the eternal flood of chaos with everything they have. Great administrators ride the chaos like a wave, reaching out to touch the water here an there to balance out an uneven swell. They don't fight the tide, they just direct it so it reaches land safely and with as little incident as possible.

Marcus Spooner  High School consisted of a gym that they shared with Alicia Spooner elementary and what looked like a squat beige one story office building. Derek had already explained the basics of the social ecosystem to Rodney. There were one hundred and twenty one students in the high school, Rodney was one hundred and twenty two. Even in a school this small cliques still existed, just in smaller numbers.

Rodney lived less than a quarter mile from the school and there were no buses for him to ride. He had plannned on just walking to school until Derek and Vivian offered to pick him up in the morning. They were finishing up a game of Mario Party the night before.

"Why bother?" Rodney asked. "I like like, maybe three hundred yards from the school, save your gas." He replied.

Derek shook his head. "Just ride with us, it's your first day." He insisted.

"It'll be fuuuuuuun." Vivian sang in a teasing tone.

The mini game ended and Rodney shrugged. "Sure, why not." He gave in.

The next morning he paced nervously in the entry way of his grandmothers house and hated himself for it. His crush on Vivian had only gotten worse and she seemed to know almost instantly about the power he had subconsciously given her. Thankfully neither of them had spoken about this power exchange out loud and so they continued their silent one way tug of war.

The Volvo pulled up and Derek honked the horn to summon Rodney outside. He practically dove into the back seat. "Morning" he offered, shutting the back door of the car. "What's that smell?" he asked.

Derek laughed and Vivian poked at a green pouch hanging from the rear view mirror. "Burnt sage, dipped in patchouli oil." She explained before turning around to smile sweetly at him. "You a fan of the Grateful Dead?" She asked.

He knew of the band but couldn't remember actually ever hearing any of their songs and he said as much.

Derek shook his head as he pulled into the school parking lot. "You'll know more than you ever wanted to" He pointed his thumb at his sister. "Thanks to her. She's a dead head, through and through." He parked the car and pulled the keys.

Rodney moved for the door but Derek stopped him. He held out a heavy iron key. "Here, take this." he offered. "It's my emergency key to the pizza place." He explained.

Rodney accepted they key and looked it over. There was a thin line of silver inlaid into the fat iron head. "Why do I need a key to the pizza place?" He asked.

Derek smiled. "You probably won't. But I can't be awake and in town 24/7, so if you don't mind I was going to put you down as the emergency contact for the store." He explained. Rodney looked back at they key again, sensing its weight even more now. "If you're ok with that." Derek repeated.

Rodney snapped out of his daze and nodded. "Yeah, it's cool, thanks." He replied.

Vivian opened her door and got out of the car, the boys followed her lead. 

Shades of Justice: Page 42

The install wasn't what Mark would call easy. On top of the memories from the subcon memret flooding back into his conscious mind there were safety systems and security measures on top of security measures in Technarious' head.

He caught himself laughing at one pint. The symmetry of working on Technarious' 'mind' after Technarious had worked on his was funny. The others did not see the humor and he didn't have time to explain why he was laughing.

Once the consciousness unit had been removed a warning popped up in his mind. "I need a containment field around Technarious' old body!" The words came out of his mouth unconsciously. Technarious' old body began to crackle and spark heavily. The containment field popped up just before the entire thing fried itself into useless junk.

Mark began to move as if he held the world record for speed solving a Rubiks Cube. "I can't tell if there's any degradation of the unit until we get it plugged in, and there is every possibility that its already garbage based on the fact that it might have already wiped itself as a 'safety measure'." He explained as he worked.

It was a tense couple minutes but when he was done he felt like he had been successful. He and the rest of the Shades waited with baited breath as the back of Technarious' new head closed up. After an eternal three second wait Technarious' eyes blinked on and off. There was nothing for a few more eternal seconds. and then, the smallest of movements.

"Oh that sucked!" Technarious groaned as he sat up to several sighs of relief. He took stock of the body they had picked for him. "Well, I would have gone for the blue one next but such is life." He said with a smile. He got off the table and onto his feet. "You've all done incredibly well considering the circumstances." He congratulated the room of smiling faces. "But we've got a lot more work to do ." He finished.

Kelly stepped up. "Technarious do you know where Lumarion is?" She asked.

Technarious nodded. "Raptarus invaded the command center, He's got a shard of darkness in his left eye socket. He trapped Lumarion in it." He explained.

Warren shook his head. "We already killed that guy once. What do we have to do?" He groaned.

Technarious's gave a razor thin glare. "Kill him again, and make it stick this time. Then destroy the shard." He growled.

Gordon scoffed. "So no big deal then." he said sarcastically.

Blood and Profit: Page 65

Time is a fickle and vicious mistress with the sense of humor of a pit viper.

P.H. Turner had never liked time. He had failed as a writer for years due to his inability to manage it. Never having enough when he needed it, or watching it slip through his fingers when he wanted it to freeze forever.

His wife seemed to have completely mastered the manipulation of time. It was only with her help and guidance that he began to publish his writings. Of course she wasn't his wife at first, but he realized on the day he held the first copy of his first book in his hands and couldn't take his eyes off her that she would be someday, all he needed was time.

She was gone now. Her memory was a constant reminder of everything time had robbed him of. Her voice was always there though, organizing and planning out the day, making sure all the proper sacrifices to time were made, even now after all these years, the bills got paid, the chores got done, time was methodically disarmed every day.

And there were the children. They had their own lives now and visited often. At first they moved around the house as if her memory were a piece of furniture that took up too much space. But time played it's little games and she slowly stopped being an oppressive absence and became for a fine layer of memory that coated everything in the house. A layer that wore down a little more each passing day.

He loved watching the children live their lives. They both in their own way had their mother's drive. Neither saw time as the enemy it so clearly was, and for that he was eternally grateful.

Eventually the river of his creativity dried up. Time had wounded him again. Robbing him of his desire to write, while maliciously leaving him alive. Nothing more than a burnt out light bulb fused into its socket unable to be removed. With the children so busy all the time, and his creative drive gone, he was left alone face to face with his oldest and most dedicated enemy.

Then the wave came, riding in on that pit viper smile. The children had plans within plans, and they filled him in with urgency. He cheered them on but told them with absolute certainty that he would be staying behind. He could not leave his wife, and he could not run away from time. It seemed like forever ago but he once again felt eagerness in his blood. He was ready.

But the rest of the world was not. They were short on everything from ships to food and fuel. The announcement of the shortages and the draft turned his eagerness to apprehension and dread. Suddenly there was not enough time and all he could hear was his wife's voice telling him to go, telling him how to use the time he had left.

Lidarion: Page 37

There were endless speculations as to how and why the create at the end of the bone road came to be. The reason most often shared among the races is that there were Titans that were not quite ready to pass on, and their desire to stay in the mortal realm festered inside the mountain, eventually coalescing into something not alive and not quite dead.

The Paragon of Death was a vile, angry, dark, and uncaring monstrosity that was obsessed with but entirely unable to pass through the great barrier it sat watch over.

All who spoke with the Paragon reported the results of their meeting from the afterlife. A place as real as this reality but apart from it, populated only by those who had already passed through this realm.

On the other side was a creature of equal size and power but with the polar opposite ability, demeanor and focus. The Paragon of life was the guardian of the far side of the eternity gate. The physical manifestation of the barrier between this realm and the next.

With the crypt of the Titans no longer available it became unclear where the Titans went to die. and as their numbers dwindled it became clear that it was a secret they would be taking to their now unknown graves.

The first stories of interactions with the paragons came almost immediately. Before long there were grand narratives of adventure and treasure, danger and excitement. As the narratives grew from simple stories to legendary tales the Sigil's became a greater part of the overall narrative. Some stories said they granted wishes to whom ever held all six. Many other stories reported them bestowing upon their owners  the gift of immortality. Some even touted the sigils ability to create a living god.

None of these stories has ever been confirmed, No reliable information about even the existence of the sigils exists. They are mentioned here as a matter of hystical record relating to the Paragon's.

Melody and Harmony: Page 11

It was hard sometimes, to get the lighter drugs in Harmony. Sure you could get gellcaps of Fry in almost every back alley and if there was a club that didn't have half a dozen Roatso dealers he had never heard of it. But if you wanted something simple and natural, like weed, you had to know someone that could get you access into a surprisingly large secret underground culture that had more scientists and gardeners than it did criminals and dealers.

Weed was one of the last surviving natural plants. It had long since been adapted to a large number of possible growth opportunities. That didn't mean it was easy, or cheap to find. The growth community's survival depended on secrecy and trust, doing business in private and keeping absolutely calm in public.The good stuff was expensive, the great stuff could only be traded for favors.

The first time Aaron and his friends had smoked, it was a reward from a job he had been volunteered for. All four of them swore off all other drugs the very first night they got high. Over the years all four of them had slowly built themselves a reputation within the community. It was known among the the lower levels that there was no favor to difficult for them, and their success had become their currency.

The growth community traveled beneath the cultural boundaries that existed within Harmony. It didn't matter if you worshiped Pop or Nu Wave Jazz Metal, everyone loved weed.

As the night had gone on a waitress stopped by Aaron's table and given him a card requesting that he come back to the club owners office. He extracted himself from his friends and made his way over to and down the dark hallway that ended at the club owners door. There was a red light above the door handle and a small sign asking him to knock.

He felt but couldn't hear his knuckles bounce off the door. The light above the door handle turned from red to green and Aaron reached for the handle finding the door heavy, but smooth to the touch and easy to open. It also shut solidly behind him.

The first thing he noticed once the door shut was the near absolute silence in the room. He took his head phones off as the club manager nodded at him. "I know right?" He said with a smile.

Aaron nodded and left his headphones around his neck. He stood for a second in awe of the silence. The only sound he could hear came from a small water fountain on the club owners desk. The owner noticed him looking at it. "Oh." He waved his hand through the middle of the hologram "Just a hologram, I've got money, but not enough that can waste water." He said with a sad smile.

Aaron nodded to the empty chair on his side of the desk and the club owner nodded. Aaron sat as the owner started talking. "So, word on the street is that you're not just a great DJ but that you know, people." The club owner veered into the end of the sentence as casual as he could, which wasn't much at all. Aaron nodded once. "So if you did me a, favor, what kind of favor would you expect in return?" He awkwardly asked again.

Aaron had been through this process many, many times. "First, I'd need to know just how big a favor you need me to do." He asked.

Spoonerville: Page 9

Rodney was pulled into the space between dreams and consciousness by the alarm on his phone. Part of his mind was awake enough to realize the buzzing noise was not a part of the surfing competition he had just won and was successfully dragging the rest of him back to the waking world.

He reached out clumsily for his phone and tapped the screen until the alarm stopped. He looked at the screen to see that it wasn't an alarm and he had just typed [7is57;o.;] to Derek on Facebook Messenger.

[what the heck is that?] popped up

Rodney looked at their conversation so far.

[Gauntlet Legends and breakfast pizza, you in?]
[Rodney, Red Warrior needs food badly]
[Dude I'm dying over here]
[Is this annoying yet?]
[How 'bout now]
[Now?]
                                                           [7is57;o.;]
[What the heck is that?]

Rodney shook his head and typed out his reply. [You did't say you were a morning person] sent it off, dropped his phone on the bed and began to scrounge around for a clean shirt. He had considered doing laundry last night but it was still summer, even if the weather in the state denied that fact with every fiber of it's being, he still had a few blessed weeks before school started. The only reason he could think of to wear truly clean clothes was to try and impress Vivian and he wasn't ready to look that obvious yet. His phone beeped as he pulled a Warcraft shirt on that didn't have any stains.

[Does it count as 'morning person' if I haven't slept yet?]

Rodney shook his head. [Oh great. Does this mean you're going to pass out sometime this afternoon and I will get to make my very own garbage pizza?] He replied as he stepped into his shoes. He dumped his phone into the pocket of his jeans and grabbed his jacket off the hook and slid into it and left the house.

His pocket beeped down the block. [A; Not passing out any time soon according to 5 hour energy]

Rodney's fingers flew over his phone screen [five hours from now is still only two this afternoon.]

the reply was near instant. [oh sure, if you wanna be a wuss and only drink one.]

Rodney sighed [and how many have you had?]

[let's see...carry the one...enough to stay awake for forty hours]

Rodney laughed out loud, alone, on the street. [I don't think it works like that.]

[if one gives you five hours of energy then eight should keep you awake for a like a day and a half. That's not marketing, that's basic math.]

Rodney groaned and typed his reply. [You do know there's a limit to how long the human body can stay conscious for right?] he sent it off.

[you are assuming I am human] came the reply.

[dude even superman sleeps!] He replied without thinking.

[prove it!]

[what are you trying to do anyway? become so caffeinated that you vibrate into a different dimension?] he asked waiting for the light to turn green so he could cross the street.

[Got it in one] came the reply.

Rodney dropped his phone into his jacket pocket and hurried the last fifty feet to the pizza shop and pulled the door open making the bell ring.