“The sky is blacker than the deepest void of nothing, and there is a sense amongst you all that this is the end. In the molten soil ahead there is a creaking and groaning like the unearthly sounds of a ship ready to sink. It only takes a moment of these rumblings, which seem to shake the ground beneath you, for a clawed scaly hand to burst up through the landscape. It clamours at your feet, forcing you backwards toward the endless sea of magma. The stench of brimstone is briefly overshadowed by one of ammonia and rot. Its source: a black billowing smoke crawling out of this ever-widening crack in the ground like the ashen clouds over Pompeii. The smoke battles its way into the featureless sky and blends with it, obscuring your vision of whatever creature it’s emanating from. You can, however, hear him.”
      Partha’s hand danced quickly across his keyboard and the next words to leave his lips were modified by his voice-changing software. He put on something of a posh accent and spoke slowly so as to emphasise the deep ethereal nature of the modulator, starting with an evil chuckle: “‘Ahahaha. What a perfect mistake you three so-called heroes have made by rousing the likes of Zenryll the World Eater from his eternal slumber in this accursed divine prison. I have had millenia to revel in my hate, and now I must consume!’” He deactivated the voice-changer and continued in his normal Bermudan accent, “The smoke finally settles as Zenryll leans forward. His head hangs over you, the size of a galleon. The individual scales, black and grey in colour, are easily larger than Hector’s shield. His breaths are thunderous and push around the smoke as he smiles a mouth of draconic teeth taller than giants. He is eager to play with the three fools who would dare challenge him…. Roll initiative.” 
      One of the 521,239 viewers of this live stream was a sixty-three year old woman living in a cabin in the Tennessee wilderness. She was leaning toward the laptop screen unknowingly, and when her brother came into the room, she was surprised by his voice: “Gracie, stop biting your nails, dear. What are you watching? Party the Kid?”
      She pulled her hands away from her mouth and smiled at him. “Johnny! Yeah, it’s the last session; come watch.” With a pat on the nearby ottoman, he smirked, rolled his eyes, and joined her.
      Among the other watchers was a forty year old French woman named May Day. She had the stream on her left monitor, but she wasn’t watching as intently as most, instead paying more attention to a chat window on her middle monitor where she was rapidly messaging someone named Lanni. Her room was dark and lit only by LEDs from her computer tower and the three screens enveloping her. Fortunately, because of a cybernetic augmentation in her brain and over her corneas, she was able to counteract the eye-strain that would otherwise be affecting her. To achieve such a thing, she needed only to activate a software she had written and downloaded into the augmentation which would inhibit her ability to see blue light. 
      When she heard the initiative rolls sounding on the VTT, she finally looked to her left. She giggled at the size difference between the player tokens and the black dragon they were fighting, then returned her attention to her conversation with Lanni. 
      Partha reduced the volume of the music after the rolls had been made and laughed at the results. “Thyne, how the fuck did you roll higher than him?”
      He did not have a webcam active like the other three, but the viewers could hear him as he giggled and took a drag from his cigarette. His voice was deep and pleasant, with a London accent: “You really shouldn’t have given me these boots, mate.” 
      Partha laughed in turn and replied, “Well, it’s no matter. You’re first. What do you do?”
      “Hmmm. I… cast….” 
      The first two rounds of combat were brutal for the party, even with Partha fudging rolls behind the scenes to save the players from being killed in one hit. He unfortunately couldn’t stop his father’s character from being downed, but he took the opportunity to have Zenryll say something that he knew would change the tides of the battle: “After Roosevelt falls, Zenryll lets out a booming laugh and says,” he activated the voice-changer to sound more menacing, “‘It is truly pathetic how you struggle. You would die for this? You must not know the consequences were you to actually slay me.’”
      “What consequences?” asked the players in tandem.
      “‘Ahahaha! You amuse me, mortals. You come down to Hell to release and slay me and do not understand your own ends! If I am felled, then the land my domain rests beneath will crumble into this prison with me, taking all who live upon that land with it.’”
      “What land?” asked Partha’s father.
      “‘Why, Akeddlon, of course.’” 
      “Oh, I see,” said Thyne, “This is what you were referring to, isn’t it, Party?”
      Partha nodded and deactivated his voice modulator. “It is. And it’s your turn What does Helio do?”
      The pause between Partha’s question and Thyne’s answer was too short to allow an actual ponderance, indicating to the other players that this was at least somewhat planned before the session: “I take the oil lamp from my bag.” At this, Partha showed his audience and players an image of a Middle Eastern style oil lamp he had commissioned from the same man who had written the score for this entire campaign. The lamp was black with a deteriorating ornate design in its more natural brass colour all across the surface. “And,” continued Thyne, “I call forth my marid patron.”
      Partha started to speak, but he was interrupted by another player: “Wait, is Helio a warlock?” This was a development others may have expected given the personality of Thyne’s character, but it was not known to anyone save for Partha that he had taken levels in a class other than bard.
      “Yeah, I took three levels in it before we even reached level ten.” 
      “Is that why you betrayed us back in Elderriver?” 
      “No,” he laughed, “That was just because Helio’s a twat. Anyway, Party, what happens when I rub the lamp?”
      “As you run your hands across the design, they are blackened. At first, you think you must be wiping away the dark colouring, but in fact, your very soul is being swallowed up by darkness. This is merely an external expression of it. The others don’t know this is happening— the soul magic isn’t visible externally, but you can feel it. Where most would find it perturbing, though, you know that this darkness around your soul is pleasant. Out of the lamp pours an aromatic smoke, smelling something like cinnamon and petrichor. It takes on the humanoid form of your friend and patron, Seif.” Partha feigned an unplaceable accent for this character as he spoke for him: “‘Helio. What ails thee now?’”
      “I smile at him and hold my bleeding side. ‘Seif, please grant me a wish. There are an unfathomable amount of lives on the line.’”
      “Seif smiles back at you, but he seems confused. ‘Helio, this isn’t like you! What do you care of death and rot?’”
     “‘It is an entire country, Seif! Millions of people! I wish for you to move the entire population of Akeddlon to another continent.’”
      “Seif frowns at you and crosses his arms. ‘And why should I?’”
      Thyne let out a shuddery breath. It was only a game, but there was still a real pressure weighing on him. He lit another cigarette, chained from the remnants of his last, and replied with a quaver in his voice, “‘Seif, please. I’ll do anything. Zenryll must be defeated.’”
      Partha leaned back in his chair and smiled wickedly. “Seif is touched. He briefly cups his hand around your face lovingly and whispers, ‘Okay,’ before looking up into the void above. He raises his hands and mutters an invocation. His magic is dark and pours across the landscape in almost the exact same manner as Zenryll’s black breaths of toxic smoke. While he is casting this spell, you both notice that Zenryll is smiling again. His booming laugh shakes the earth as Seif’s arms fall to his sides. Your marid friend looks to you and whispers, ‘I’m sorry….’”
      “Wait,” said Thyne, “He can’t do it!?”
      “He cannot.”
      “Party, what the fuck, mate!? We talked about this before the session!”
      His wicked smile returned, but he otherwise ignored the outburst, saying instead, “Franky, it’s your turn.”
      He arched his brow. “I was under the impression I acted after Zenryll.”
      “He’s still channelling, so his turn is more or less skipped.”
      “Okay,” he stroked his scruffy chin, “Standby.” 
      Francis took a moment to ponder his options, and it was in this brief moment of dead air that a woman watching from Arizona rushed into her kitchen to retrieve a tray of almost-burnt cookies from the oven. Her name was Dezba Meadows, and she was one of Partha’s oldest fans at sixty-seven years old. Tabletop games like the ones he often streamed reminded her of her late husband. When he was alive, she never took the time to fully understand the games’ complexities, so there was always a pit of guilt in her gut when she watched Partha’s streams and found herself so invested and able to comprehend the rules of the games with ease. When she came back into the sitting room to resume watching the stream, Francis was finishing his turn, having hit the dragon with a high-damage spell as well as his sword.
      “Good hit, Franky. He’s very low,” Partha praised before taking a sip from his Piña Colada. “Thyne? You could probably finish him off, and it’s your turn.”
      The Englishman held his head and leaned on his desk. Smoke from his cigarette danced circles around him. His voice was muffled for the audience due to his hunched posture: “If I kill him, all of Akeddlon will die, too. Is that a certainty, Party?”
      “As far as you know, yes.”
      A shuddered breath. “I… don’t think Helio would do this. He’s evil but….” He leaned back and took two quiet drags as he pondered. “Okay. I turn to Seif, take his hands in mine and say, ‘I wish for you to kill him. You have so much more blood on your hands than I do. And if he isn’t destroyed, he will slowly devour the entire world until there is nothing left.’”
      Partha steepled his fingers as he listened intently to the question. “Okay, Seif will need a moment to process that request, and by that I mean I need a moment.” 
      His steepled fingers bisected his face as he leaned on his thumbs and scanned his computer screens. 
      “How many people has Seif killed?” asked Francis.
      Partha took a moment to process the question before answering, “Oh, I don’t know. At least a couple thousand.” 
     Francis nodded and drank from his flask. While Partha pondered, all three of the players responded to some of the questions from the livestream’s chat. 
     “Okay,” he said after eight minutes of wordless deliberation, “Seif is shocked by Helio’s request. You feel his grip around your hands tighten. His eyes widen, and after a glance back at Zenryll’s towering silhouette through the smoke, he whispers to you, ‘Helio, I have killed oh so very many people, but you’re asking me to kill millions so as to not have the blood on your hands? This is….’ He trails off and squeezes tighter onto your hands. His face is featureless, but you can sense him seeming to cry when he finally says, ‘Okay… I’ll do it.’ He releases your hands and takes a step back, turning toward Zenryll and raising his arms. He begins channelling a powerful spell. Zenryll’s turn is next, but he has this final round before his channel is finished, so Franky: one last turn. What do you do?”
      He fiddled with his flask’s lid noisily. His teal-green eyes scanned his laptop’s screen. “To clarify: Zenryll will die? I can wait for Seif to kill him or kill him myself?”
      “Correct.”
      “And, if one of us succeeds at killing him now, all of Akeddlon will also immediately be destroyed?”
      “Yes.”
      “But if he finishes his channelled magic…? What happens then?”
      Partha’s wicked smile returned. “You’re not certain, but the prophecy spoke of the entire world being devoured over the course of several decades.”
      He fidgeted with the flask again. “So, this is truly our last chance to stop this…. Hector will not be responsible for the destruction of an entire country. If it will take several decades for the entire world to be devoured, mayhaps we will still have time to stop it. So…” He took a swig from his flask and wiped the excess rum from his lips. “I approach Seif and place my hand on his shoulder.”
      Partha tilted his head. “He looks at you.”
      “‘Seif… don’t kill him.’”
      There was a moment of stunned quiet from everyone. Partha was visibly baffled by the request but, after clearing his throat, he said, “He stops channelling. His arms fall to his sides, and he pulls you and Helio into a loving embrace. He whispers an invocation neither of you recognise, and everything goes black. You can’t feel anything anymore, but you hear him whisper, ‘I love you,’ afterwards.” Partha took a deep breath to calm himself. “It comes around to Zenryll’s turn, and you hear a rumbling sound as his channel is finished. Out of character, I will tell you that the entire plane is collapsing in on itself, and you are all sinking into the floor as it turns from basalt rock to liquid magma. But, because of Seif’s magic, you feel no pain or upset and see nothing but darkness. You feel at peace as your lives fade out into nothing. I suppose the prophecy rings true: Zenryll escapes Hell and begins devouring the world, and… that’s the end of the campaign.”
      A loaded silence followed. Those who had watched the stream over the years and come to love these characters were blindsided by this ending. Many shed tears at the conclusion, some more enraged than others, evident by the onslaught of negative messages reeling into the chat. When Partha caught glimpses of his fans’ opinions, he let on a pained smile and said, “I’m going to go buy another drink. Thyne? Did you still want to play something after this?”
      Thyne looked up from his phone at his friend’s webcam and said with a low voice, “Yeah. There’s no hard feelings, mate.”
      Partha’s smile became less pained, and he even let out a tipsy titter. “I’ll hold you to it!” It was interesting to see Partha stumbling to the door for those watching. When he stood, he leaned heavily toward the right of his desk and quit the room with his strides staggered and body slanted the entire way.
      While Partha was gone, his father took to answering the chat and keeping the stream interesting. Thyne silently appreciated such a thing: it allowed him to text with Francis:
      〖 Bring me something sweet and bad for me. 〗
      『 Have I upset you? 』
     〖 No, Franky. There wasn’t anything we could do. I don’t know why Party didn’t warn me about the dead man's switch. Whatever. Just bring me some food. 〗
      『 What would you like? 』
      〖 I don’t care. 〗
     Francis looked up at his computer from his phone and briefly read some of the chat messages. His brow furrowed as he felt offended on his friend's behalf. “I’ll be back, too,” he said before pulling a cover over his webcam.
      Richard opened his mouth to reply to Francis, but he was interrupted by Partha coming into his room with a rum slushy for each of them. Still walking with a slanted posture, he brought them to his father’s side and said, “The ship is listing. Should we be concerned?”
     Richard took one of the drinks and rustled his son’s hair. “Thanks, Party. We’ll be okay. Hardly a list; I think you’re just drunk!” He laughed but stopped when it seemed to offend his son. “You did good with the game.” Partha’s gaze flicked to the chat, but his father grabbed him gently by the chin and pulled his attention back to him. “Your talent to create narratively compelling stories under all this pressure and in only a few seconds always astounds me, son.” His smile was pure and loving enough to infect Partha, and the chat was made less hostile after it became clear how much the negativity was affecting the game’s drunken host.
      “Thanks, Daddy.” 
      While Partha made his way back to his own computer, Francis appeared at Thyne’s side with three takeout containers stacked precariously in his left hand and a strawberry milkshake in his right. He took a sip of the frozen treat, declaring it as “the friend tax,” then set it on the white wooden desktop in front of Thyne.
      After muting his microphone, Thyne smiled weakly at him and sipped through the striped paper straw. “Smells like Indian,” he muttered.
      Francis nodded and passed him the top two boxes. “Your favourites.”
      Thyne opened the containers to find butter chicken over rice in one and Chinese sugar doughnuts in the other. He offered a warm smile to Francis. “I love you, mate. You want to stay here? Me and Party are going to play Counter Strike.”
      With a drunken blush and grin, Francis nodded and pulled a chair from Thyne’s vanity to sit beside him. 
      “What’d you get?”
      He opened the last container to show his friend the vegetable pancit inside. 
      “Do you need a drink?” He reached for his mini-fridge and passed a can of diet ginger-ale to his friend without waiting for an answer. “Just remember to use a coaster, you wanker.”
      By then, Partha had returned to his computer. “Where’s Franky?”
      Thyne unmuted his microphone. “He’s here. We’re eating. Opening my game now.”
      “That was an interesting conclusion, Partha,” commented Francis, “Were you planning that from the beginning?”
      He drank some of his slushy to stall answering the question. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said eventually.
      “Oh! Apologies, my friend.”
      Thyne shared his screen with Partha so the streamer could show both gameplay perspectives for the audience as they wound down with some simulated violence. Of the millions of people who played the game the world over, Thyne was among the top fifty in terms of skill, which was much the same story for him across multiple games and genres. He was often approached by esports managers and developers for various games, but he rejected all offers. Gaming was a hobby, and he didn’t need the money, no matter how ludicrous some of the sums were. He valued his freedom and privacy more than almost anything, and he was happy to share streams of his footage with Partha’s audience to help bolster the younger man’s career. There were sometimes viewers who tuned in solely to watch Thyne and Partha gaming together, and the streams wherein the older party was mentoring Partha were especially popular. He was a good teacher and never asked for compensation for his time or advice.
      After only ten bites of his pancit, Francis put the mostly-full container in the mini-fridge beside Thyne’s desk then scooted his chair closer to lean on his friend’s shoulder while he gamed. For the first few rounds, Richard was the most talkative of the group. Thyne was taking bites of his butter chicken during lulls in the gameplay and Partha was drunk and overly affected by the negativity after his campaign. Despite that, it was only Francis who had fallen completely silent. He had his hand on Thyne’s thigh without either of them noticing, and his eyelids were heavy. Tiredness was not to blame for his relaxed state, but bliss. The room was dark but not uncomfortably so. There were LED strips embedded into the crown moulding all around the ceiling. They were a warm peachy pink colour which bled down into the vibrant pinks, blues, and purples from the computer tower, monitors, and keyboard. It was therefore violet in the chamber, but the white of the moon was cutting through the airy curtains above the bed and bathing the men in smokey moonbeams. Francis had no ability to smell, so he was made especially curious by the idea of what all the smokey scents might have been adding to the ambiance. Some of it was from Thyne’s three cigarettes of the night, but he also had a stick of dragon’s blood incense on his altar that was only just then burning out. 
      “Franky?” he heard Thyne coo and snatched his hand from his friend’s thigh. “You don’t have to move that, mate.” He took Francis’ hand and put it back where he had absentmindedly rested it, bringing a blush to both of their faces. Thyne smiled through it and gestured to his keyboard. “Do you want to play?”
      He shook his head and hesitantly relaxed his trembling hand on Thyne’s thigh. 
      “Okay, just let me know if you change your mind.” He kissed his forehead then returned his attention to the game. Considering Partha was drunk and also already not much better than average, Thyne was holding back while he played. There were several moments he stopped moving to take bites of his food or smoke, but he was only punished by the enemy team once out of seven instances. Overall, he was having a great time. He had his best friend drowsily draped on his shoulder, his favourite foods, his favourite cigarettes, and another close friend somewhere out in the Atlantic getting sloshed while they gamed. They won most of the matches they played thanks to Thyne, but he prioritised joking around with Partha and Richard. 
      In the interim after the campaign’s confounding conclusion and the switch to this FPS game, Dezba had found herself gripping tightly onto her knitting needles. The steam from her latte and freshly baked cookies had faded away. The scent of chocolate and coffee lingered in the dry air, and the desert outside was as silent as her empty home. It wasn’t until the conversation turned to talks of Thyne’s upcoming birthday that she noticed sounds creeping back into her perception. More present, she noticed a rare rain outside making her feel small and protected. She relaxed her posture and finally released her deathgrip on the needles. With a sigh, she set them down and sipped on her latte as she resumed listening to the boys talking on stream:
      “And how old are you turning?” asked Richard.
      “Old,” was Thyne’s simple reply. 
    “Oh, don’t bother, Daddy,” slurred Partha as he died in the game, “He’s jus’ gonna say he’s turning sixty-nine again!” He laughed drunkenly and struggled to read some of the chat messages on the side of his screen while he waited for the next round.
      Richard laughed too. “I suppose it’s none of my business.”
      “So what do you want for your birthday?” asked Partha.
      Thyne took a moment to ponder. He stopped moving his character in game to stroke his chin with his left hand and absentmindedly killed an approaching enemy with a flick of his right shortly thereafter. “Well, you know what I like. We can talk about it off stream.” There were things he wanted to mention to his friend without the burden of an audience. Thyne was quite a secretive individual, so there was hardly anything known about him to Partha’s fans. He was British, that much was evident from his voice, and it was understood that he was at least fifty years old. He smoked like a chimney and enjoyed violence in all the sorts of games they played. But even after four years of being a regular part of Partha’s streams, the fans were forced to speculate further than those few facts. 
      Dezba groaned at Thyne’s insistence to speak about his gift off stream. She knew it was his right to keep himself so guarded, but as a long time fan of Partha’s work, she felt entitled to at least a scrap more of information. There was a small part of her that saw her husband in him, and she would never admit to the small crush she therefore had. Of course, there were boundaries she would never cross. She didn’t even use the chat when she watched the streams, so she was hardly the type to actually try attracting his attention. That she was filling a void of loneliness in her soul with this parasocial bond was something she was only vaguely aware of. 
      The boys continued playing for hours, even after Richard had to go to bed and while Francis was mentally absent. Partha maintained his drunkenness but never pushed it to a point of incoherence. His skills in the game were hindered, but Thyne was able to make up for it. Usually, the Brit would be harsh on Partha for the inane mistakes he was making, but with Francis leaning on him the entire night and the smoke in the air, it was far too blissful for him to snap at his distant  drunken friend. 
      All of the calm of the night, however, came to a screeching halt when a stranger started blasting a song through his microphone. It peaked and clicked and growled like sandpaper on a chalkboard, but Thyne was still able to recognise the song before he quickly muted the offender. Partha was slower to mute it, but he seemed much more outwardly startled by it than Thyne, and Francis’ only reaction was a flinch and a pat on Thyne’s thigh in an attempt to comfort him. 
      For the following three rounds, Thyne was entirely silent. He did not engage in Partha’s drunken banter, nor did he acknowledge the comments from both of his friends about how he was being suddenly very harsh on the enemy teams. The fourth round following the outburst, Thyne single-handedly killed the entire enemy team in twenty-six seconds, which was indicative to Partha that it was time to end the stream and talk to his friend more privately. He bid his audience adieu and quadruple checked that his stream was ended before turning his attention to his private call with Thyne and saying, “You can turn your camera on now. What’s wrong?”
      After checking that Partha wasn’t streaming anymore, Thyne plugged in his webcam and opened its cover. Onto Partha’s screen therefore came live footage of his two closest friends sitting together in Thyne’s London home. 
      During the day, Thyne’s room was a soft pastel pink with lace and flowers and other forms of stagnant beauty. His altar, which he devoted to all manner of gods, was equally gentle in its sightliness: small marble idols sat atop a short antique bookshelf behind him with a stick of incense almost always lit in front of them. At this late hour, however, the area had all but lost its airy regal nature. 
      The moon must have sucked away the colour of the room, leaving it in a state of grey and black that matched Thyne’s dark clothes and many piercings. It was lit only by the pink, indigo, and violet LEDs around the ceiling and coming from Thyne’s computer tower. 
      A warmth that was otherwise absent entirely from the room emanated from his lighter as he flipped it open in a flourish and lit himself another cigarette. The flourish brought attention to his missing fingers, which were currently replaced by cybernetic prosthetic ones: his right middle and left ring fingers. Partha had always assumed it was a joke when he claimed to be old, because looking at him, he didn’t look a day over thirty. His features were somehow simultaneously soft and angular. His cheekbones were sharp and led into his slightly-cleft chin with the grace of a dancer. His pale skin was smooth, free of pimples, and always clean-shaven but speckled lightly with freckles, especially on his cheeks and nose, which were usually redder than the rest of him either from wrath or flirtatiousness. His hair was naturally brown, evident by his well-groomed eyebrows which were currently (and usually) furrowed with rage, but as long as Partha had known him he kept the soft wavy locks dyed pastel pink and somewhere between short and shoulder-length. His teeth were straight and pearly white despite his constant smoking. His upturned eyes were sharp with irises coloured the same amber of dying embers. One of his most distinctive features was his perky nose, which was in desperate need of poking. Very rarely, Partha would witness it holding up a pair of big round reading glasses, but Thyne tended to not often need them.
      Slightly behind the Englishman’s white and pink chair, sat in a white antique dining chair and adjusting himself to lean on Thyne’s shoulder again, was Francis, a Frenchman. He looked about the same age as Thyne, but his skin was more tan and therefore slightly more worn. His hooded eyes were deep and captivating. They were an odd sort of hazel that fluctuated between navy blue and sea green, usually (and currently) somewhere in the teal between. Small gold hoop earrings dangled from his ears any time Partha saw him to the point that he could only assume he slept in them. His sharp jawline was hidden under a forest of wild brownish beard which matched in colour and unkemptness with his brows, but when it was clear he had recently bathed, he would be clean-shaven or graced with a pleasant shadow of stubble. His hair, usually in a ponytail, was long and blond, sometimes quite literally “dirty” blond. In fact, he seemed allergic to hygiene most days. His teeth were straight but rotten and yellow. Parts of them were even brown. He would occasionally go long enough without showering that his hair would start to mat, and he would absent-mindedly roll it into locks. The nasty bastard had no sense of smell, so he must have reeked. Luckily, Partha had never had the misfortune of meeting him in person, but in private conversations with Thyne, Partha learned that Francis smelled often of the ocean, booze, and woody colognes. “Usually pleasant,” was how Thyne described him, but Partha was willing to bet he was noseblind because of his constant proximity to the disgusting oaf and obvious crush on him. 
      The two friends were usually sitting while talking with Partha, but he knew their heights and how dichotomous they were to their respective builds. Thyne was only 5’8”, but he was athletic and would sometimes not wear a shirt on calls, showing off the well-toned body he was clearly quite proud of having. Francis was the taller of the two at six foot, but calling him lanky would be an understatement. He was visibly malnourished. It was a wonder he was even still alive. Partha had only ever seen him consume alcohol and the occasional take-out. His attitude was boisterous and his wardrobe flowy enough, however, that it was hardly noticeable most days how physically weak he truly was. 
      On the other side of the call, sitting in a standard cruise cabin, was Partha. His single father was a sailor, so as far back as the kid could recall, he was living on ships and travelling the world. When he was only ten, he started taking fencing lessons from some of the sailors who often worked with his father, and when he was twelve he started entering unofficial tournaments in various ports. In one of these unregulated events, he was fencing with a boy a few years older than him, both of them unmasked, and his opponent accidentally took out his left eye. He was rushed to hospital where the injury sustained was deemed too gruesome to save the eye. At first, young Partha was struck with an understandable upset at the situation, but after a heartfelt apology from the teen and a few months of healing, he decided to lean fully into the aesthetic. He became obsessed with pirates and history in general, which led to his interest in designing, sewing, and wearing costumes, which led quite naturally into tabletop gaming and roleplay. 
     His costume currently was somewhat draconic and overly detailed. He even utilised his missing eye to give himself a glowing prosthetic one. Since the session had ended, however, he had taken out the uncomfortable device, as well as the headpiece, to instead wear his eyepatch, which was how he tended to present himself. His hair was its natural black, but it had been dyed almost every colour under the sun at least once. It usually fell past his shoulders, but at the moment it was freshly buzzed due to a fiery mishap in the galley a few days prior. He often wore hoop earrings not dissimilar to Francis’, though they were more noticeable against his darker features than the blond’s. His height was only an inch shorter than Thyne, but his build was much more average than the Brit’s. He was twenty-three, but he looked slightly older, no doubt from all the sea air and sun he saw. His family had Indian ancestors, but neither he nor his father had any meaningful connection to that culture. By birth, they were Bermudan, but they both considered themselves citizens of the world considering how often they travelled, never setting anchor anywhere for very long. 
      His face was ovular and pleasant, with a Grecian nose, bent slightly sideways from a different childhood injury wherein it was broken. His lips were thin but pillowy and his cheekbones were soft and hardly noticeable under his smooth brown skin. His smile, which was not an uncommon default for his expression, was pleasant with teeth all straight and clean. Though his jawline was soft, his chin was pointed and angular, drawing a harsh distinction from the rest of him, especially when he would let his facial hair grow into a goatee that suited the pirate aesthetic he loved so much. He was objectively attractive, and perhaps that was why he had such an easy time playing into the sailor stereotype of being a horndog. 
      Thyne took a drag of his cigarette, inhaling all of the smoke as he closed his eyes to try calming his racing heart. It didn’t seem like he was going to answer Partha’s question, so he tried to change the subject: “What do you want for your birthday?” 
      Thyne shook his head, his eyes still closed as he took another drag. It was as he blew out a puff of smoke that he opened his eyes to glare into the camera. “Party, have you heard of Maitland Music Group?”
      He shook his head.
      After yet another drag, he leaned back in his chair and held his hand out on its armrest to ask for Francis to hold it. Once their fingers were intertwined, he let his cigarette hand hang limply off the other armrest and said, “Maitland Music Group is a company that was established in 1921 by a Welsh man named Joe Thomas Crump, or J.T. Crump as he was usually called. He named it after his wife at the time, who would become the real head of all of its dealings. It was her idea originally, but it was 160 years ago: women didn’t exactly have too many opportunities to do that sort of thing.
      “They’re a huge sound design and music company now. Always have their hands in movies, games, and whatever the fuck else. Have a few record labels, and I think a brand of biscuits for some bloody reason.” He rolled his eyes. A drag. “But they started off by selling sheet music for instructors and schools. Their competition never sold anything original (or at least nothing good), but Maitland was different. Over half of the songs in their books were award-winning, original, and, in a lot of cases, free for commercial use. Some of the more precious ones took a longer time to reach the public domain, but now all of the original recordings are free for anyone to use. That song in the comms, or what was audible of it, sampled a piece called Charcoal Diamonds composed in 1932 for an entire orchestra. Their methods in producing so much original music were… unethical to say the least.”
      Partha nodded, though his brow was knitted. Thyne was petty as Hell, but this seemed incredibly random. What did he care about the unethical business practices of some random company a hundred something years ago? How the fuck did he know all of this anyway? And off the top of his head! “Does this have something to do with your birthday?” 
      Thyne nodded. “I want a gang,” he said after his next drag as if it was a sufficient explanation.
      Partha tilted his head. “For your birthday?”
      He nodded but didn’t elaborate. 
      “Franky, do you know what he’s asking for?”
    Francis had been so mentally absent that hearing his name made him physically start. He looked around to determine his location then found Partha on Thyne’s computer screen. “Apologies.”
      “He says he wants a gang,” said Partha as if Thyne was not present.
      “Yes. Like that game you play with us sometimes. Oh, what was it?" He stroked his scruffy chin. "Ah! Gang Theft Auto the Seventh.”
      Partha snorted at the misnomer and noticed Thyne, still grumpy, smiling as well. “Well, he said as much. I don’t know what you mean, though.”
      Francis opened his mouth to reply, but Thyne held up his hand to stop him and leaned over his desk to look up into the camera, making the bags under his eyes more evident even as the smoke from his cigarette slightly obscured the picture. His voice was low and wrought with bloodlust. “Party, I want a gang. I want to take down Maitland. I know you have underworld contacts, and all my attempts to start one with Franky have fallen flat.” He leaned back again. “But if you can’t handle it, then just get me a plush from your next port to add to my collection. Or maybe a Grecian idol of Aphrodite or Charon for my altar.”
      Partha’s eyes widened as the request seemed to sober him. He nodded more and more enthusiastically as he started to understand, a smile creeping its way across his lips. “Okay! A gang! I can do that for you. Hopefully I can do it on time, but if I don’t get replies quick enough, it might be a few days after your actual birthday.” He sipped on his cocktail and started up another queue for them to resume playing their game. “But I have to know: why?”
      Thyne shook his head and smiled wickedly. “I knew you’d pull through for me, Party. If it all goes well, I’ll tell you all about it, but for now I’m keeping mum.”
      “Fair enough,” said the sailor as they were put into another match.