Arguably the single most unique piece of loot I had acquired from any of my adventures was the music box we got clearing Madame’s Bar in the Gradden March Floating Quarter. It was a complex mechanical job, or maybe magical. You opened the lid, and a dancer in a Blue Roses costume would spin around as the music played. Versai would play it over and over again. Hundreds of times in a row, if I didn’t stop her.

  I understood why. She had always been trapped by the barrier of the Fourth Wave. Most of the Tower Masters she served were dead by the Third. Isolated, brutalized, traumatized, in an endlessly repeating wave of disposable “Masters.” and monsters. And then she found a burning piece of home. And in that flaming wreckage there was music. A song from her homeland. One of her people, dancing.

  We found it there because Carousel nee Madame loved music boxes. We literally looted her stuff. The Blue Roses’ costumes we found had been directly returned to their proper owners. I was the delivery boy on that one. So it was completely understandable that Carousel would want her music box back. Hell, it was probably deliberately put in her bar by the designers to let me start her relationship path.

  Did we find it in her office? I couldn’t remember. Didn’t matter, really. It was properly hers. But I didn’t know that when I looted it- no. I didn’t care. That’s the truth of it, I didn’t care whose it was ‘originally.’ I was fighting headless bruisers and doll-like dancing support monsters. All the loot was game generated. Why worry about prior ownership when it was put there for me to take?

  And now my best AOE and my best DPS were ready to murder each other. And I respected both of them a lot.

  I rubbed the spot between my eyebrows. It had been such a nice rest. I got chased by a billion army ants and got eaten alive while drowning, but there were downsides too. I hate running. Always have. Good times are always gone so fast.

  “Alright, I get it. Versai, please go hang out in your dorm for a while. I’ll call you back in a bit. Just… chill for a bit, okay?”

  “As you command, Tower Master.”

  I’ve gotten dirtier looks, but not a lot of them.

  I felt like I should invite Carousel to sit, but the throne room only has one chair. I guess I could take her to my quarters- that has more places to sit. But even I know how that would look, and what it sounds like.

  Damn.

  Carousel was waiting calmly. I was quite sure she could read every twitch of my face.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone disagrees that you are the original owner of the music box.”

  Carousel nodded, not saying anything.

  “And you don’t need to justify being the current owner either. Just because your house is on fire doesn’t mean people can just come in and take your stuff.”

  She nodded again.

  “Carousel… how much time has passed since the night before the final battle in the Floating Quarter?”

  “Four days?”

  “No, I mean the original one. The battle that occurred before I arrived. When you made a deal with someone or something.”

  Her eyes went glassy and the coordination in her body suddenly locked up. It was the first time I really thought of a Six Star as a doll. Carousel became a pretty mannequin, displaying lilac clothes for the purchasing crowd.

  “I can’t remember anything like that.” The voice was a flat monotone.

  “Did you talk with Sebastian about what life has been like for him before he joined the Tower?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  I swear some parts of this had been discussed in her presence before. I know they had. Why was she suddenly having a case of the “I don’t want to talk about its’?” It must be because I’m putting her on the spot. Making her confront the game and its mechanics.

  No.

  I shook my head. That can’t be it, or Versai wouldn’t be able to use her exploit, and Sebastian wouldn’t have figured out that he was, essentially, a dungeon monster. He didn’t use those words, but he definitely had the idea. They might come down with selective deafness and the game had edited what they were allowed to notice, but “the laws of the universe are subject to abuse” was not one of those things. Nor was its… disjointed time.

  Was there some specific thing in what I had asked?

  Oh. Oh yes there was.

  Whoops.

  Guess the developers really don’t want players peeking behind the curtain. At least the sky isn’t throbbing and threatening instant extermination.

  I clapped loudly. “Carousel, can I ask for your advice on hats?”

  She jolted into life. “Hats, Tower Master?”

  “Hats! I need to visit Hattie’s Hat Shop, and she’s kind of a lot. And you have a very fine hat, so I could use your hat feedback.”

  “My Hat is cheap and cheerful, Tower Master, but I do have some experience shopping for hats. Would you like me to accompany you?” There was a bit of smoke in her voice, but I ignored it. I knew it was her programming.

  “Yes, thanks. And Carousel? You know how time moves differently here?”

  “Yes, Tower Master.”

  “It’s moved a lot longer for Versai than for you.”

  “Oh. Tower Master.”

  “Decades longer, or maybe centuries. And every two or three days, she would be torn apart by monsters.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Oh.” Carousel looked a little sick.

  “I’m not getting in the middle of your fight, and I’m certainly not going to order you to magically become friends or something stupid like that. Just… finding your music box was the single best thing that happened to her right up until we conquered the Floating Quarter. Something to think about.

  Hattie’s Hat Shop had zero hats. You walked into a small, warm room with a little platform surrounded by heavy velvet curtains. And that was it. You walked in, the customer stood on the stage, then Hattie’s hands got to work on you.

  “Hello Tower Master. I hope you have brought something interesting this time. I see you are still wearing my gift. That’s good. I like people who appreciate what they are given.”

  Carousel, to her immense credit, didn’t laugh.

  “Hello Hattie. I brought two materials. I don’t know if or how you can use either, but you seemed like the right person to ask.”

  “Yes. Asking is good too, though sometimes it’s best to remain silent. Don’t you think? Tower Master? But let me see what you can offer.”

  I handed her the Ruseh Beard and the two headed monster material.

  “That I cannot use. Take it away. Worthless! But this… this is a little special. I can make something nice from this. For a price.”

  “And… What is the price?”

  “Merely what I am worth. Diamonds. Two frozen diamonds, and the Ruseh beard. I won’t take Rune Bones for this. The result will be…” Her voice trailed off, as her cool hands traced the sides of my face. “They will satisfy you in a way no one else can.”

  I frowned. Hattie didn’t press. She withdrew her hands and returned to the darkness of her curtains.

  I’d seen it over and over and over- the Tenth Wave was the cliff, and we were now plunging into the Premium Currency Abyss. But my Weeb senses were tingling. There was something else here. Some other force at work. Developer villany was always the prime mover, but someone else touched up these lines.

  What did I know about Hattie? First time I saw her name, it was on one of the fliers- a limited time event brought back to be a permanent addition to the game by ‘popular demand.’ She gave out a free hat just for visiting, with a… kind of interesting, if feeble, buff.

  Provides a +.005% bonus to draw higher rarity Awakened Souls, and to complete sets. Which is an interesting thing to buff. So far, the sets I had put together were for clearing Relic Sites. I hadn’t really drawn to a complete set, and that percentage adjustment might as well be nothing even over quite large numbers of draws. But the fact that she could make changes to the rate at which certain characters were pulled was… very interesting.

  “Hattie, could you tell me what the hat you will make will do?”

  “Why Tower Master, I am disappointed you have already forgotten. It will make you a better man. One more… capable of satisfying the needs of his women.” A hand traced down my back. I frowned, and the hand vanished.

  “Oh no you don’t. No you damn well don’t.” I looked over at the curtains. Would the game stop me from yanking it open? I had a feeling that, even if I could, it would irrevocably break whatever relationship I might have with Hattie. And Hattie was clearly at least a Five Star intelligence, which made her a God amongst my other in-Tower vendors.

  “Your work interests me. It really does. But I’ve been getting the hard sell my whole life, and I’ve found the one universal truth- never simp. Because no company, or paid company, will ever love you back. So either tell me what the Hell this hat does, or tell me straight that you can’t tell me, but do NOT try to attack me in my own damned Tower!”

  My fists were clenched. They had come up to my chest. When did I start shouting? But the sheer disrespect! Screw keeping a good relationship, I won’t have it!

  “I apologize.”

  I felt a lurch, like I had tried to step on a top stair that wasn’t there. I blinked at the curtains. My anger seemed to have lost its channel, and was now evaporating in the wide fields of calm voices.

  “I am what I am. Mostly I enjoy it. Most of my customers enjoy it. But if you do not, I can… try. To restrain myself is hard. But I am not helpless, entirely. I can make some… alterations. Though truthfully, I think it will impact the quality of my work. It was not my intention to attack you, but to play my role.”

  What… what fresh Hell is this? She knows she is playing a role? Is this like with Cutthroat Clothiers? She knows she is working for some higher power? I tried to sort through what I was thinking and feeling.

  “Impact the quality of your work?”

  “Yes. I am Hattie.” I felt the room tremble for a second, like a plucked guitar string. “And Hattie makes the best hats. Hattie teases her Tower Masters. She tantalizes and pushes them. Urges them to be more, earn more, grow more. And while she might not deliver what she implies, she always delivers what she promises.”

  I could see Carousel out of the corner of her eye. She had an understanding look on her face.

  “So a Hattie that does not tease and push-”

  “Is not Hattie. And Hattie makes the best hats.” The cool voice had a trace of a smile in it, but only a trace.

  “Are you… in several Towers right now?”

  “Yes and no, Tower Master. And no, I cannot explain that.”

  “There is only one Hattie?”

  “That is quite correct. Tower Master.” A hint of the playful inflection was back now.

  Time. It was temporal abuse by the devs. I couldn’t prove it, but…

  Order time. Order time has no relationship to any outside measurement of time. I experience time passing, things happen, but each block of order time was the only real “time” there was. Which was crazy, but I had to figure the developers had their own sinister reasons for it.

  So you take a comparatively expensive to maintain NPC, and only make one of her. And you let her be everywhere all at the same time, because the time experienced by the Tower Masters and the time experienced by people outside the demi-planes are not at all the same thing. Time wouldn’t pass in a pane from her reference point until she entered it.

  Hattie existed in a frozen universe of stretched time, and she ran her cool finger along the timeline until she found the moment when she was called. And then her hands reached through the curtains, and touched the scared, lonely, directionless people inside.

  At least, that’s my theory. I wonder if Cutthroat Clothiers does something similar for their ‘mining’ or salvage operations. And even Hattie, this impossible existence, was bound by the character the Developers created for her.

  Or she was lying to me and she was just a pair of hands on the end of some broomsticks operated by yet more gnomes. It would be the more plausible option. I just don’t believe it. Never believe the simple theory when there is a more horrible theory available. A rule that has yet to fail me in this game.

  “Do you think you could be playful and teasing without the… you know…. unsubtle manipulation and disrespect? Because I got to say, I’d prefer a life without hats otherwise.”

  “It bothers you that much? I can make some truly wonderful… yes, it does. Very well. I’ll think about how I can make this work. I must emphasize- Hattie makes the best hats. And… are we only what we believe ourselves to be? Or are we also who others see us as?”

  I tried to follow that line of logic, and thought I got it.

  “So… this particular hat?”

  “I cannot tell you in advance what materials will produce which sorts of hats. There is a degree, sometimes a significant degree, of variation in the quality of the final product based on several factors. Only some of which I control. And I do like control. Tower Master.”

  I was picking up on it. Her voice would shift in pitch and cadence, sometimes almost robotic, other times the cool smoke of our first meeting. Trying to find out how she could still be Hattie but not drive me away. If she was anything like Cutthroat Clothiers, she would have a near compulsion to sell me stuff.

  “I don’t suppose you made a deal with someone, or owe someone a debt, which landed you in this job?”

  “I don’t believe we are that intimate, Tower Master. Though that may change with time.”

  Uhuh. And what do they have in the Champaign room? But honestly… did it matter what her specific motive was? As long as she wasn’t screwing with me, I could work with her.

  That kind of disrespect, though… I can't tolerate that. I could feel my guts clench as memories tried to intrude. Never simp. Not in games, not in life, and NEVER in something that’s both. Because nobody respects a simp. Not even the simp.

  I wanted to go home. The homesickness came out of nowhere, and landed like a rain of knives. I want to be home. In my duplex, with my things. My happy world. The place where I decided who and what deserved respect. Where I didn’t have people laughing at me and attacking me.

  The feelings washed over me. I let them pass. I could feel a shame spiral starting, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been in the past. I could let the feelings wash over me and drain away.

  I looked at the curtain Hattie was hiding behind. “Would you say your hats give benefits on the same level as those provided by Cutthroat Clothiers?”

  “I have no idea. My hats make you look better, feel better, perform better. My hats, and my hat shop, exist to make you a better Tower Master.” I could hear her struggle not to put any extra inflection on those words. To not twist them into something spikey.

  An interesting distinction. One made my summons perform better, one made me perform… oh I do not like that word. Her hats were buffs specifically for me.

  “Here. Two frozen crystals and the beard.” Knocking my supply down a big chunk. But things that could buff me were too rare to easily pass up.

  “Thank you, Tower Master. For your business and your trust.”

  “When should I expect the hat?”

  There was a warm laugh. “Why, now of course.”

  There was an incredible sound- gusts of steam and tacks being hammered and irons stretching over felt, sewing machines running like they were being chased by monsters. A deafening sound, blaring out of nowhere.

  There was a gentle hiss at the end. “Eyes straight ahead, Tower Master. Do you see, ever so faintly, that whorl in the wood? Fix your eyes there for a moment. Good.”

  I felt my old hat lift away, and a new one settled down in its place. “The best I can do for now. Remember, the more I am Hattie, the better the hats. But my work is never bad. I cheat no one. Tease, beguile, and yes, taunt, but never cheat.”

  I heard her withdraw her hands, and felt her presence leave the room. I looked over at Carousel. “How much of that should I believe?”

  Carousel could only give me a helpless smile. “If it helps, I like your new hat.”

  It would have to do.