ALL NOVEL Cycle 7 (Kimi)
Kimi knocked on Emmy’s door, Avi and Aya standing behind her. It took a few seconds for the Floor Overseer to answer, but when she did she smiled.
"Hey," Emmy said. "How can I help you?"
"We need to talk to the Admin," Kimi said seriously.
Emmy took half a step back. "Why… do you think he's here?"
"Because we've seen you holding his hand," Aya said.
"Oh." Emmy stepped back, holding the door open. "Have a seat, I'll… go get him." She turned and headed for a flight of stairs.
Kimi glanced back at Aya and Avi, then stepped in. The house was small, with an open floor plan. Kimi debated between the couch and square table, and decided to sit at the table. Avi sat to her right and Aya on her left, leaving the chair across from her open for the Admin.
It was a few minutes before they came down, Emmy leading. The Admin had clearly just woken up, and that sight startled Kimi. She was still thinking of him as some… omnipotent, immortal being. Not as Some Guy who just got fired and was crashing at his girlfriend's place.
"I'll make coffee," Emmy said, heading to the kitchen. "Does anyone else want coffee?"
"Thanks," the Admin muttered, stumbling to the table as they all accepted. He flopped into the empty chair, rubbed his face, and looked blearily at Kimi. "Ok. What do you need to talk about?"
Kimi decided to skip any preamble. "What happens if we lose?"
He blinked a few times, then sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair, straightened his shirt, and adjusted his posture to face her directly. "Do you know what would happen if you win? To the dungeon at large, not just you."
"No," Kimi said. She glanced at Aya and Avi, who also shook their heads.
"Ok. Every world starts out with several groups of people spread around it. Two of these groups are given an inordinate amount of good luck. Not the individuals, but the race. Those races are destined to take over the world and dominate it," he explained. "Whatever dungeon wins, the souls that inhabit it will be split into those two races in the next world."
Emmy handed him a cup of coffee. He thanked her and took a sip while she brought coffee over for everyone else.
The Admin waited for everyone to have their drinks before continuing. "To balance out the good luck, two races are given a bunch of bad luck. They are destined to be inexplicably hated by everyone else. They will succeed in nothing but surviving. The dungeon that produces the worst players, so, the dungeon that loses, will be split into the two races with bad luck."
Kimi stared at him. "How…"
"Of course, a 'neutral' luck is illegal," the Admin said, fiddling with his cup. "The top three dungeons will get positive luck, the losers will get a corresponding amount of negative." He took a sip of coffee. "Well, 'luck' isn't really the right word. Karma? Divine favor? I don't know. Something like that."
"How is that fair?" Kimi asked.
He smiled bitterly. "It's not."
"So winning isn't just about us, not just about the dungeon, but about our kids and every generation after?" Kimi demanded, pushing herself out of her chair.
"Yep," he said, looking her dead in the eye.
Kimi saw barely-restrained rage in his eyes and stopped. "You hate it."
"Of course I do!" he snapped, nearly snarling. "I never wanted any part of this! Dooming millions of people to a fate like that based on ten people not murdering as good as other people?! Not giving them any chance, any agency in how their lives and the lives of their descendants will play out? I hate every single part of it! And I wasn't even supposed to talk to you, because heaven forbid I start thinking of you like actual people!” The cup in his hands cracked. “I- I did my best, but I have no authority. Maybe if I'd been here a hundred years, but I'm still 'the new guy'. This is how things have always been done, and the Director wants to use this to get a promotion, so there's no way in hell she'd change things.” He looked around the table. “I tried, believe me I tried. You- Your group was my last resort. Beating chess by using checkers pieces. If you won, the whole system would be called into question. There might be some… hope.” He set the cup down and shook coffee off his fingers. “If you lost, at least I wouldn't have to be part of the system any more. I like building worlds, but knowing how the worlds will be used makes me sick." He put his face in his hands.
Emmy walked over and rubbed his back. "Calvin…"
Kimi watched, stunned. By what the Admin had said, and by the fact that he had a name. She glanced at her friends, and they both looked pensive. Having no clue what they were thinking, she did a mental coin toss and turned to the winner. "Avi?"
Avi flinched back, but looked determined. "The Director told me you were stupid to send us," he said. "There was too much at stake to risk losing."
The Admin took a deep breath."She only said that because you were winning," he said. "She didn't even notice you weren't players until she was looking into something unrelated."
Aya put a hand on the table. "Was the world we came from a part of the good luck/bad luck system?"
“Kinda? Apparently it’s a test-world to see how humans do if they’re the only race on a planet, so by default they got the biggest portion of good luck," the Admin said. "There's also a kobold world, an elf world, a fairy world… Lots of worlds out there.” He gave her a half-shrug. “The rest of the luck was spread to animals. Most of the animals with bad luck died out in the ice age. Cockroaches got second place good luck. Cats got third. As another test, we started out with magic as a finite resource. Humans had access to it until like the twelfth century. The Director comes from a time when magic still existed and is a big fan of it.”
“Wait,” Kimi said. “Wait, so the bad luck can be put on animals?”
“I guess.” He paused, then sat up straight. “It can. It doesn’t have…” He stared out into space.
“How hard would it be to convince the Director to do that?” Aya asked.
“Probably hard,” Avi said. “She’s not very nice.”
“But if we won,” Kimi said. “If we won, and said we don’t want the top prize, would that be enough leverage to convince her to not give anyone bad luck?”
The Admin tapped his cup with his fingernails a few times, thinking. “It might be. It might not be, but… But her main concern here is looking good on paper. If the other Admins agreed that giving bad luck to a dozen animals was fine, she’d have to do it.”
“What animals would you curse like that, though?” Emmy asked.
“Cockroaches,” Aya said.
Avi smiled. “Slimes.”
“Maybe we can bring back wooly mammoths and curse them with being extra delicious,” Kimi suggested. “The point is, no people would have to suffer.”
“True,” Emmy said softly.
“Of course, all this is dependent on us not automatically losing this cycle,” the Admin said.
“Shut up, we have a plan and it will work,” Kimi told him.
Aya crossed her arms, smirking. “Yeah. I don’t lose.”
“Ok then,” he shrugged. “The fate of the world is in your hands.”