Chương 161: Chapter 160: Rising Tide

Rina came in with the clutch save before Celeste could push the browsing-history mechanic any further, which was unfortunate because BrineSaint's reaction had been the best content Meno had gotten from him all night.

"So, Celeste, how come you don't play with these guys?" The question pulled Celeste's attention away from her husband long enough for BrineSaint to drain the rest of his Honeyjuice in one long drink. Celeste settled back against the sofa.

"It's a time issue. I prefer doing the planning. These guys go way too hard for me." Meno was about to ask what kind of planning she handled when two men approached their corner through the crowd. The first needed no introduction. JaxxonVale already looked annoyingly good on camera, but real life was a clear rarity upgrade. He was a fashion model for a reason. The man beside him had clearly been rolled from the same unfair character generator: tall, sharp-featured, bored, and dressed like paid DLC.

Both of them had maxed Charisma at birth, and the RNG was ridiculous. Meno leaned toward Rina before they got close.

"Rina, close your eyes. Danger coming up. Strong possibility for a charm effect. I'm not sure how high your crowd control recovery is."

"What are you actually trying to say?" She followed his attention toward the approaching men.

"Oh." Meno shook his head. Oldest mechanic in the game, and she had walked straight into it. The situation might already be unsalvageable. JaxxonVale reached the table first and greeted the group with a polite nod that did not fit GraveMistake's standing declaration of war against QuestingVale.

"Hey, just wanted to thank you, PBG, for the viewer boost. Appreciate it. Scuzzy here trying to kill me nonstop was great content." Meno's entire anti-quest campaign had backfired. He had sent Scuzzy to demonstrate the consequences of questing, and Jaxxon had somehow turned the attacks into view farming. Meno had expected ScuzzyIamDisease to look like someone banned from several train stations, not a commercial. Scuzzy pointed lazily toward Jaxxon.

"The guy likes pain, and viewers are morons. Griefed him for hours, but his numbers only kept going up, so I stopped. Restream was good. Do that again." Jaxxon laughed and indicated the seating area.

"Can we join you guys?"

"Of course," Celeste said.

"You're welcome to." BrineSaint stood immediately.

"Let's swap." Celeste looked up at him.

"Why?"

"My leg needs more room." Rina folded against Meno before Celeste had even finished processing the excuse, laughter shaking through her while she buried her face in his shoulder. Celeste gave BrineSaint the kind of look normally reserved for a defective fridge, but she scooted farther toward Hush anyway, allowing BrineSaint to reclaim the newly opened section of sofa. Jaxxon and Scuzzy pulled two nearby chairs over.

Meno looked behind the group, caught a passing server's attention, and waved toward the bar they had visited earlier.

"Another round of Honeyjuice from the south bar. Ten this time. They'll know it." The server headed off, and the expanded group settled in. Scuzzy immediately spent too long looking at Rina, his bored expression sharpening just enough to make the attention impossible to miss.

"PBG, is that your woman?" Rina's previous laughter had barely stopped, but Meno answered the important question first.

"Why? Do you like her?"

"Too thin for me. I want more meat on those chops." Rina lost it again, doubling over beside Meno and laughing hard enough that her body started shaking. He wondered whether she was going to short-circuit before the actual party even began. Scuzzy was doing serious damage to his family-friendly image. Meno redirected the conversation toward the other criminal at the table.

"Jaxxon, what's up with the questing? Have you lost it? And what happened to your team? I didn't see anyone else from your group in the top 50." Jaxxon seemed much more comfortable discussing Veyrath than defending his new lifestyle.

"Streaming dungeons and racing the ladder made sense for the first few weeks, but that space has become very top-heavy on Streamline. We split, and my team joined the top guilds. I wanted to focus on better content instead. Nobody else is doing high-level questing properly, so it's a nice niche and a lot more relaxing."

"Sounds like you're having a crisis."

"It's fun. If you could keep sending GraveMistake after me, I'd appreciate it." That part was already offensive, but Jaxxon kept going.

"Did you know Firentaz imprisoned Furnon below Fractera after Furnon wiped out the surface of the continent? While the shackles held, Firentaz couldn't remain in Veyrath, but now that you solved that problem, he can return. I have a good lead on his quest chain and might even get his Class Evolution." Meno could already feel a headache forming, but Jaxxon was only getting started.

"It might be better than Tyrant. According to the lore, Excrino was the weakest god, and Tyrant isn't really a true Divine Evolution. The clue was in your Tyrant EX unlock. That's probably why Tyrant had an upgrade in the first place. The others might not. Excrino used to be a human king who sacrificed his entire kingdom for Divine power on one of the lost continents. Then the gods punished him and hanged him, and after that, he was forgotten while the others retreated from Veyrath one by one."

The guy was beyond saving. Meno had asked what happened to Jaxxon's team and received a lore dump instead, and now BrineSaint looked interested.

"That makes sense. That leaves Veyra and Delfor's paths undiscovered. I think Muran is tied to the positive Karma ladder. I found clues that he can only be summoned by a righteous champion. Unfortunately, normal Karma is extremely difficult to earn right now, even with my Mythic amulet. The system needs to be adjusted." The Honeyjuice arrived before the conversation could become a seminar. Ten yellow-orange drinks landed across the low table, and Scuzzy grabbed the nearest one without ceremony.

He drained the whole thing in a single gulp, held the empty glass for a second, then grimaced.

"Haven't had such a trash drink since the window-cleaner incident at my graduation after-after party." Rina's attention snapped toward him.

"You actually have a university degree?" Scuzzy looked offended by the surprise.

"Why are you giving me those googly eyes? Of course I do. You guys don't? I'm a veterinary surgeon. You know, animal stuff. Never used it for anything, though. World decided I was more useful as a clothes hanger, so now I sell trash designer clothes with my body." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Meno looked between him and Jaxxon as another connection finally clicked.

"Actually, no degrees at all. Wait, you and Jaxxon knew each other? That's why you signed up to gank him?"

"Yeah. My question was more aimed toward the others. I knew there was no way you ever stepped into a university in your life." Scuzzy pointed at Jaxxon.

"And yes, we've worked together before. He actually enjoys doing this crap, so I hate him." Jaxxon ignored the insult and immediately returned to the subject he cared about.

"Do you guys want to do the raid? Maybe we can group up for a run. The viewership would be massive." BrineSaint answered without much hesitation.

"Maybe. If nobody else clears it before we hit hundred. Otherwise, we're going to ignore it." Meno had been waiting for a reason to drag the ladder back into the conversation.

"Remember when you said the real race was to a hundred? Do you think you can catch up to me?"

"No." BrineSaint did not soften the answer or pretend the current gap was smaller than it was.

"But since hundred isn't the cap, I'll eventually overtake you. Sixty to hundred wasn't balanced very well. The power creep on classes was massive because of Evolutions. The moment the scaling kicks in, you'll fall. It doesn't matter if you can kill a boss with a stick if it takes you ten hours to do it." That hit harder than Jaxxon's lore lecture because BrineSaint had aimed straight at the problem Meno had been turning over since the VTOL ride. Tyrant's Chain scaling looked absurd now.

Content had not grown far enough to smother it yet. If monster HP and Defense accelerated faster than his gear, every Chain stack would become worth less even while the tooltip stayed the same. He could still be mechanically better and become slower anyway. That mattered more than dying, because a monster that killed him could be learned. A boss that demanded ten hours of perfect execution because his damage had fallen behind was a hard wall made out of time instead of mechanics.

It also clarified what Tyrant EX needed from him. Playing safe would be a mistake. The modification system let him strengthen every active and passive by sacrificing something else, and he had been considering whether to preserve utility in case later content demanded it. BrineSaint's point cut that hesitation down. If the class plateaued while the world kept scaling, Meno needed to strip out anything that did not contribute to damage and push every modification toward killing faster.

Otherwise, the monsters would not need to beat him. The clock would.

"We'll see." Before BrineSaint could answer, the atrium speakers came alive and pulled attention toward the central balcony, where a polished announcement introduced Miniril Valnor and informed everyone that she wanted to say a few words before officially opening the event. Meno had thought Morlando would handle something like this since he owned Streamline, but the man had not even bothered to show up downstairs.

Meno had also assumed the event was already open, considering they were inside it and drinking, but CEOs seemed biologically incapable of allowing a gathering to exist without giving a speech first. A middle-aged woman stepped onto the balcony overlooking the main floor, and the speech was everything Meno feared. Streamline was excited. The community was incredible. The numbers were incredible. The creators were incredible. Growth was incredible. Engagement was incredible.

More people were watching, more people were streaming, communities were growing, discovery was improving, the platform was improving, the energy was incredible, the momentum was incredible, the future was incredible, and they were only getting started. Meno stopped listening somewhere around the fourth incredible because Honeyjuice was more interesting, and Rina was even more interesting.

By the time Miniril reached the end of the corporate anesthesia, Meno had shifted most of his attention toward kissing her instead, which made hearing his own name over the speakers especially inconvenient.

"And now, we're incredibly excited to hear from someone who truly represents the very best of this community, our number one creator, Meno Varsh." Meno pulled away from Rina because they could not be serious. He had no speech, nobody had told him he needed one, and, more importantly, nobody had told him before several glasses of champagne and multiple Honeyjuices. Rina understood the problem immediately but stood anyway and started pulling him toward the marble stairs.

Meno let himself be dragged until they reached the bottom, then decided petty revenge was appropriate. When Rina tried to release his hand and remain behind, he tightened his grip and pulled her up with him. Miniril greeted them at the top with the fakest smile Meno had seen all evening and offered her hand. Meno shook it because refusing would create more effort than accepting, then moved toward the balcony rail with Rina trapped beside him.

The atrium below was full of faces: ranked players, executives, sponsors, staff, partners, managers, and dozens of people Meno did not know, all waiting for him to say something worthwhile. His brain searched through every speech he could remember and found mostly useless corporate phrases. Being inspirational seemed safer, or at least less likely to inflict the same Sleep debuff Miniril had just applied.

"Hi. This is weird." Meno adjusted his grip on Rina's hand.

"You know, guys, I might be rank one, but I couldn't do it without any of you. I really appreciate you occupying the other 49 spots, and I hope we can all be friends." The first wave of laughter spread from the younger players near the bars, while several people in the front exchanged looks as they realized this was not going to resemble Miniril's speech.

"Except Kestrel, obviously. That guy baited everyone into taking Eternal, and now you can't fight me without detonating yourselves. Very rude of him." That got a much louder reaction. Crownfall's cluster became the center of several turning heads, and Meno spotted enough offended expressions among the Eternal players to know Kestrel would eventually hear about it even if he had wandered out of view.

"Still, let's keep this positive. My mother used to say a rising tide washes away the coastline, or something like that. I think she meant when the water rises, we all drown. So fair play is very important." Confusion spread through the older corporate section while several players started laughing before he even finished. Rina squeezed his hand hard enough that Meno could not tell whether she was trying to support him or stop him.

"I'm looking forward to competing with all of you, even though I mostly only check the top ten." The lower-ranked players reacted exactly as expected, with several arms going up in mock offense. Meno turned toward Miniril.

"And it was very nice of Streamline to invite all the hardworking people behind the top players too. You guys spend all day feeding XP to one person so they can become rich and famous, and you don't even need anyone to know who you are. That's very selfless." The support players finally got their turn to make noise. Several groups began pointing at their highest-ranked member, while a few of the ranked streamers suddenly became fascinated by their drinks.

Meno searched for Karmabeast, which was easy because he was wearing a shirt with a giant 2 across the front.

"And to end on a positive note, I went to a wedding once when I was sixteen. At the end, they throw flowers into the crowd and all the women try to catch them to establish rank. I thought that was a pretty good system, so we're gonna do that now. We don't have flowers, so we're doing matchmaking by negative Karma instead." Karmabeast's posture changed immediately. Meno scanned the crowd.

"Arayu, you here?" Near one of the bars, a woman with at least ten different colors in her hair lifted her head.

"Arayu, Karmabeast might be deeply unwell, but he has an Ancient I dagger. That thing is disgusting. I think you're focusing way too much on personality and not enough on his actual stats." Arayu burst out laughing loud enough to carry across the room, then clapped one hand over her mouth when several nearby people turned toward her. Karmabeast looked like somebody had just informed him that PvP had been permanently removed from Veyrath. Meno felt the speech had achieved something meaningful.

He returned his attention to everyone below, then pulled Rina a step forward until she stood in front of him.

"Oh, one more thing. This is Rina." Rina leaned back immediately and whispered through a smile.

"Don't you dare." Meno reconsidered.

"Never mind. Thanks, guys. Bye." He pulled her away from the balcony before Streamline could ask for closing remarks. They were halfway down the stairs when Meno leaned closer to her.

"I think that went pretty well."

"I was clearly worried about the wrong thing." Rina laughed.

"Mr. Marketing Expert." They had almost made it back toward BrineSaint's corner when Karmabeast intercepted them and wrapped one arm around Meno's neck.

"What was that, man? I had this whole speech prepared for her and you go with the dagger?" He shifted his attention toward Rina without letting Meno go.

"And hey, Rina, glad to meet you IRL."

"Hello yourself. I thought that was pretty cute. You should go look for her."

"I am here." All three turned. At close range, the first thing Meno noticed about Arayu was that she was much shorter than he expected. The ten-color hair made her easy to spot from across the room, but she barely reached Karmabeast's shoulder now that they were standing together. The second thing he noticed was Oxy, who had come with her and stopped beside Arayu without showing much reaction to seeing Meno again.

"Hey." Karmabeast immediately focused on the more urgent problem.

"Look, I didn't put him up to any of this. I had this whole thing prepared." He reached into his pocket and unfolded an actual piece of paper, then began reading.

"Arayu, your smile is like when the sun comes out after it's been raining, except better because the sun doesn't have your face. Your hair has so many colors it's honestly hard to describe, but they all look really good on you. Sometimes I think about you when I'm trying to sleep. You make my chest feel weird in a good way, and I would really like it if you stopped rejecting me." Rina looked physically wounded by the experience.

"Oh. My. God." Oxy's face twisted.

"I think I'm going to be sick." Arayu had apparently reached her limit. She grabbed a fistful of Karmabeast's shirt and started pulling him away through the crowd.

"Come with me, you idiot. I can't take this anymore." Meno watched them go with new respect. Karmabeast could write on paper, and, more importantly, he had possessed the courage to read that paper aloud in front of an actual person. That was almost impressive enough to excuse the contents. Unfortunately, Arayu taking him away left Oxy standing behind, and Meno had not planned for that part.

After everything in Fractera, Muted Mode, the copied quest, and seeing her guild tag disappear, there were too many obvious questions. He settled on the one that had bothered him since Friday afternoon.

"Why did you leave the guild? I should be the one that's mad. You let them use you for gear." Oxy's restraint finally cracked.

"I had to, okay? My whole party bailed for Crownfall and now I'm completely screwed. I can't keep up alone, I can't solo dungeons, I can't farm enough to catch up. If I don't get into a top guild, I'm done." She swallowed hard.

"Like actually done."