Time passed the way it only ever did in places full of books.
Thick. Heavy. Folded in on itself.
The viewer count crept upward in small, unenthusiastic increments. The likes stayed stubbornly low, as if the audience had collectively decided to watch with their arms crossed.
Then a voice rolled through the stacks.
Warm. Baritone. Calm in a way that suggested it had never been hurried by anything as trivial as fear.
"Everyone," it said, carrying impossibly far. "Let's gather in the center. It'll be easier if we can see each other."
The lamps nearest Ah'Ming brightened, subtly angling their light like helpful ushers.
"…Center," he echoed. "Right. Sure. Love that for us."
Finding it was another matter.
The library resisted in quiet ways. Like an evil librarian. Like a complete—. No. No, Ah'Ming. No swearing! Be nice, be good. Shelves shifted just enough to block straight paths. Aisles looped back on themselves. Once, he passed the same brass globe three times in under a minute. Somewhere behind him, someone cursed softly and gave up, sitting down on the floor instead.
It took a long time.
Long enough that by the time Ah'Ming finally broke through into an open space, the conversation was already well underway.
The center was a vast circular reading hall, its ceiling lost in shadow. Long tables had been pushed aside to form a rough ring. People clustered in groups, voices low but urgent, all oriented toward one man near the middle.
Ah'Ming slowed.
So that was the leader.
He looked… unassuming. Too normal for the attention he commanded. Casual posture. Easy smile. Hands moving as he spoke, expressive and relaxed, like this was a dinner party instead of a death-adjacent scenario. He leaned in close to whoever he was talking to, voice dropping, eyes bright.
People reacted instantly.
Nods. Laughter. A few flushed faces. One person looked like they might cry from gratitude alone. He could almost understand…. The man seemed so trustworthy…. So full of leadership qualities…..
Yummy.
Floating near him, faint and only visible if you stared too long, was a system tag.
TAMER"Love me, Love me not"
Well. That explained it.
Ah'Ming felt a strange pressure in the air around the man, like standing near a lit stage. Affection, weaponized and polished to a science.
"…He's number three thousand four hundred fifty-eight," someone murmured nearby.
"That low?" another voice scoffed.
"That high?" a third countered.
Ah'Ming frowned.
3,458.
It wasn't top ten. It wasn't even top hundred. It was… aggressively specific. The kind of rank you only remembered if the list was very, very long.
Billions, he thought, uneasily. Billions and billions. Made sense though, if Bianheng's words were trustworthy.
That would explain the reverence. And the bitterness. Fame was relative. Survival was not.
He didn't go any closer.
Instead, he drifted sideways, gravitating toward the edge of the crowd like a leaf avoiding the main current.
Two people stood off to the side.
One had moss growing down their arms in soft, trailing fronds, green veins faintly visible beneath their skin. They leaned on a cane made of knotted wood, eyes half-lidded but sharp. The other looked painfully normal. Plain jacket. Plain hair. The kind of face you forgot five minutes after seeing.
Ah'Ming cleared his throat.
"Um," he said. "Hi."
They both looked at him.
The normal(er) looking one blinked. "You lost?"
"…Probably," Ah'Ming admitted. "I just got here. I don't really know what the game-mode is."
They exchanged a glance. He wanted a friend too, dang it!
The mossy one tilted their head, studying him. "First substory?"
Technically second, but still.
"…Is it that obvious?"
"Yes."
The normal one sighed, then relented. "It's wave defense."
Ah'Ming blinked. "Of course it is."
Why did the second one make so much more sense than the first one? This one was a classic game, one everyone knew.
The first one? What even was it? A detective story? A mystery novel? It was completely stupid, and he was over ninety percent sure that they had cleared it the completely wrong way.
"There's a grandfather clock," the mossy one added, gesturing vaguely upward. "Big. Can't miss it once you see it."
"For the last fifteen minutes of every hour," the other continued, "the lights cut out. Complete blackout."
"And then the shadows come," said the mossy one, tone almost bored. "They hit hard. They don't like noise. Or fear."
Ah'Ming hummed.
"What about the rest of the time?" he asked.
"That's prep," the normal one said. "Exploration. Clues. Puzzle-solving."
"To answer the question," the mossy one finished.
Ah'Ming nodded quickly.
"Right. The question," he said.
He did not ask what it was. It was probably pretty obvious.
The words tangled in his throat, caught somewhere between not wanting to look stupid and not wanting to draw attention. He glanced back toward the center, where Tamer was laughing softly, a hand resting on someone's shoulder a second too long.
Affection numbers flickered invisibly. Approval spread like warmth. Sickly warmth. It was sweet, like popcorn. But when you ate too much you'd throw up, on your first date. Onto your date.
Ah'Ming looked away.
"…Thanks," he said instead.
"No problem," the normal one replied. "Stick near the edges if you can't fight."
"I can fight," Ah'Ming said reflexively, then immediately regretted it.
They both looked at him again.
The mossy one smiled, slow and knowing. "Sure you can."
Above them, somewhere deep in the library, a clock began to tick louder.
The lights dimmed by a fraction.
The hour was getting close.