Pan Post 98 flips between time periods, the present and a month earlier which directly follows Pan Post 97. The month earlier, Highemperor teaches Carian Myste to use his pocketwatch to Powerplay. The watch itself can trap light within the mirror but with Powerplaying, Carian can summon objects from the pocketwatch, which they call unflecting. Later he uses it to summon money to pay for an expensive suit, which Highemperor asserts is important for any self-respecting Powerplayer. In the present Carian Myste attends the ball to win back the heart of Lady Dibella. Bandits rush into the ball to kill Carian but he fights back using his cane-sword and his pocketwatch. He uses the pocketwatch to remove the lead bandit's clothes, mocking the man, and then kills him with the sword. The other bandits surrender and Lady Dibella takes Carian upstairs where Demara, Carian's former maid, is present and a threesome ensues. Elsewhere Highemperor and Soriel are playing poker when the Beholder Quincturianos Dthesyrius, commonly known as Quincy, arrives. Quincy is dedicated to voyeurism but Highemperor makes the beholder promise not to watch Carian for his first time. Quincy also informs them of a grand war that occurred. Many powerplayers rose up against a being similar to Highemperor, known as Zhuge, and Zhuge won. However after the battle he stepped down as Powerplayer claiming his life as hollow and became a hermit. This would lead on to Highemperor trying to recruit Zhuge for the Stronghold of Powerplayers in Pan Post 41.
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Mentors[]
Tonight. The city-state on clouds. Another party in full swing.
Herald: Assembled ladies and gentlemen, may I present - Carian Myste!
The crowd turns to see a dashing young man in an impeccable suit walk in. His manner arrests everyone's attention at once, and all the girls swoon over him. He mingles, his charisma charming everyone, and dances with girl after girl.
The young Lady Dibella, who knows Carian from her youth, before his father lost all his wealth, is struck anew with the young man, and makes her way through the crowd to him.
-----
A month ago...
Carian Myste: I don't need your help. Especially not the help of the man who stole my love's heart!
Highemp raises his eyebrow.
Highemp: It is never my intention to steal another man's love. If you are referring to the party I just left, none of the ladies there seem my sort. I suspect whatever effect I had on your love is merely temporary infatuation from my charm.
Carian remains stonefaced.
Highemp: Perhaps I should mention that I know exactly how you can win her love again...
-----
Tonight.
Between dance partners, Carian checks his pocketwatch. The hands rotate on a polished mirror for a clockface. Nearly midnight.
Carian Myste: It's almost time.
He smiles at Lady Dibella, who approaches him, and bows gallantly from the waist at her, as she curtseys, blushing.
It is then that the windows shatter, bandits swinging in on ropes. The crowd screams as the miscreants draw guns and knives. Dibella screams as well, but Carian squeezes her hand comfortingly and offers her a roguish grin.
Bandit Leader: My men will be taking your valuables - and I will be killing that dog Carian Myste!
Carian Myste: You brought it on yourself, cur. Extorting and beating the poorfolk topside. I hope you enjoyed the thrashing I gave you earlier - because you're about to get it again.
He pulls a slender sword out of his cane, as the bandit leader brandishes a scimitar and serrated knife. The two circle each other, Lady Dibella clutching her skirts in dismay. Everyone watches as the pair face off, even the other bandits holding off from lightening everyone of their jewelry.
Carian Myste: A gentleman lets his opponent make the first move.
The bandit leader charges. Carian sidesteps and trips him with his cane. The leader growls as he surges to his feet and turns around, only to be blinded with light from Carian's pocketwatch.
-----
A month ago.
Highemp: What is that you hold?
Carian has put away the beam of blinding light. He shows the small object to Highemp.
Carian Myste: My father's pocketwatch. The mirror within it can trap reflected light.
Highemp: Oh, you can trap and release so much more than light with a mirror.
Carian Myste: What do you mean?
Highemp lays a finger aside his nose and smiles. He holds out his other hand, and Carian wordlessly places the pocketwatch into it, with some reluctance. But he is curious despite himself.
Highemp: There is a wine bottle in that window there. I am not familiar with this world's wines, but I suspect that is a fine one.
Carian Myste: It is. Sokan's Vineyards, 153rd Harvest.
Highemp opens the pocketwatch. Instead of beaming the light trapped within it, he merely lets the mirror within act as a mirror always does. The pocketwatch glows a faint silver for a moment, then Highemp brings the miniature mirror away from its direction towards the wine bottle and proffers it back to Carian.
He takes it and looks at it. The mirror, despite being pointed into his own gazing face, is still reflecting the wine bottle in the window!
Highemp: Not reflecting. Unflecting. You know how to summon trapped light from the mirror. Now summon the wine bottle from the mirror.
Carian Myste: But... how?
Highemp: It's called powerplaying.
Carian looks at the window - the real window - as if to confirm his senses. The wine bottle is still there. Then he looks into the pocketwatch mirror, still showing the reflection of the wine bottle. He bites his lower lip and concentrates.
And then the wine bottle is no longer in the mirror, but in his hand.
Highemp: Well done...you've taken your first steps into a larger world.
Carian Myste: I don't recognize that line, but the way you delivered it makes me think you're ripping someone off.
-----
Tonight. The bandit lunges over and over at Carian, who sidesteps every attack. Periodically, the young man opens his pocketwatch again, blinding the bandit leader. Now he opens it once more, and the bandit shields his eyes expectantly.
But no blinding light escapes, and instead the crowd begins laughing uproariously. The bandit leader is now clad in aught but his skivvies! The pocketwatch mirror is reflecting the bandit leader, but in the reflection, the bandit is still clothed.
Bandit Leader: What-- what trickery is this?
Carian Myste: Justice.
He stabs the sword through the bandit leader's heart, killing him instantly. The other bandits surrender in trepidation as the coppers come in. The crowd cheers their new hero as he cleans his sword and sheaths it back within the cane. Lady Dibella practically dives at him and snogs him.
Her body pressed into his gives his impeccable suit the first wrinkles it's had all night long.
-----
Two weeks ago.
Tailor: I can make this suit indeed - I am the best tailor in the world, after all! But - it will cost you a pretty penny.
Carian grins and dumps a large bag heavy with gold coins onto the counter.
Tailor: Now we're talking!
Carian leaves the shop shortly, and meets Highemp outside.
Carian Myste: I could've just unflected a suit from the shop window. For that matter, I don't understand why I need a suit at all. I'm still living on the streets.
Highemp: You must be noble at all times. You are a gentleman of the highest order. I too am a wanderer, with no home or possessions, yet I wear rich raiment. Thus do all powerplayers.
Carian Myste: Okay, but I had to fence a lot of unflected stuff to pay for a custom one.
Highemp: As an up-and-coming powerplayer, your raiment must be unique and special, made especially for you.
Carian Myste: Hmmm, I think I get it...
-----
Tonight. Lady Dibella has dragged Carian upstairs and pulls him into her bedroom - where he is surprised to also see his old childhood friend, the maid Demara!
Carian Myste: Demara!
Maid Demara: Cari!
Lady Dibella: I thought you would like knowing that she entered my employ... Let's all reunite together!
Elsewhere in the cloud city-state, Highemp and Soriel are playing poker.
Soriel: Don't you EVER get sick of this game?
Highemp: That's a rhetorical question, right?
His poker deck is illustrated with an epic cosmic tarot, and the next card he draws is the Mentor, which depicts a bald old man with a long flowing beard.
Highemp: Ah. What brings you here, old friend?
An entity shimmers into existence beside them, revealing a massive roundish shape floating in the air. A single large eye and a toothy maw are on one side, and 69 eyestalks wave about from it. A beholder deity!
Beholder Deity: Just wanted to check up on you, old chap!
Soriel: Bollocks. You want to spy on the kid getting it on with his two girlfriends, don't you?
Highemp rolls his eyes longsufferingly.
Highemp: Quincturianos Dthesyrius! You are the Knower of Secrets, the One Who Sees, the All-Eyed God! Not a common voyeur!
Beholder Deity: Why can't you ever just call me Quincy?
Highemp: Such a... pedestrian appellation. You came up with that piece of grandiosity yourself anyway!
Quincy: Yes, but when all my worshippers routinely chant the whole damn thing constantly in their prayers, it gets a little old. Besides, I never see you complaining when your hookups call you 'Highemp' in the moment of passion.
Highemp: I-- Wait, have you been spying on me again?
Soriel: SILENCE, BLADE!
Quincy and Highemp ignore Soriel, used to his outbursts.
Quincy: Well, I AM the All-Seeing.
Highemp: Oh gods, at least tell me you didn't put any of it on Pay Per View[Ext 1].
Being the deity he is, Quincy is the god of Pay Per View and all its variants throughout the multiverse.
Quincy: Er...of course not!
He quickly retcons things to make his statement true.
Highemp: Thank the gods for small favors. You know, I never understood why, if you like sex so much, you don't just powerplay yourself from genderlessness into gender and get it on with someone?
Quincy: I'm the One Who Sees. Voyeurism is what I enjoy more than anything else!
Highemp: If you say so. Don't spy on Carian though. Give him a little privacy.
Quincy: But--
Highemp: At least for his first time?
Quincy: Fine, fine. You twisted my eyestalk. Young whippersnappers these days, talking back to their mentors. I hope Carian talks back at you someday too!
Quincy met Highemp during the early days of the latter's wanderings, and took the fledgling powerplayer under his wing - much as Highemp is now taking Carian Myste under his own wing.
Soriel: Lovely catching up. Don't suppose you're here for any reason other than Porn Per View? Maybe to tell us about some big war going on?
His eyes light up hopefully.
Quincy: Actually yes, I am here to tell you about a big war.
Soriel: Point me the way!
Quincy: Uh...the war's over.
Soriel: Dammit!
Highemp: What sort of war was this? You wouldn't trouble me about anything that wasn't insanely epic.
Quincy: Certainly not! My Pay Per View ratings went through the roof streaming all the battles. It was that fellow Zhuge, you heard of him?
Highemp: The bird-man? Yeah, one of the greatest powerplayers ever, huge multiversal empire, the works. I plan to outdo him someday.
Quincy: Well, a whole coalition of other empires and powerplayers rose against him.
Highemp: Oh? Who won?
Part of him wants to hear the Zhuge won, that a king among powerplayers would never be taken down - yet another part of him wants no one else save himself to be unbeatable.
Quincy: Zhuge, of course. But here's the kicker. War just ended, and Zhuge - he stepped down.
Highemp blinks.
Highemp: He what?
Quincy: I dunno, some tripe about 'feeling hollow and empty inside', becoming a hermit, whatever. Personally I think it's a midlife crisis.
Highemp looks completely befuddled by such a decision. He looks sharply at Quincy.
Highemp: Did YOU beat him then? Is that why he 'stepped down'?
Quincy: Nah. I was too busy watching all the fighting to be buggered to actually join in.
Highemp: Think you'd have won?
Quincy: Of course! But I'm a powerplayer, that's what I always say, irregardless of truth.
Highemp: It's 'regardless'. Not 'irregardless'.
Quincy: More backtalking. The cheek!
References[]
External References[]
- ↑ Pay-Per-View article, Wikipedia.