Decadence

"When did you get so good at vanishing, Joy?"

I didn't really see or understand how she managed to escape after her little stunt last night, and we're now hiding with someone she helped earlier this week.

"Hahaha, I'm just that good!"

I really don't understand how is she so nonchalant at all of this situation. Tarik as the leader of the defense force is the worst case scenario, and we need to do something as soon as possible. 

I wish I could talk to the creator, or author, or whoever. We'd get them banned, and maybe even get some answers. 

"Ya" Joy places a hand in my cheek and says gently, "You don't go to him for answers. The answers take you to him." 

She is looking deep into my soul, and I take my chance to admire her heterochromatic irises. Her skin is so soft, the slight tan and black hair gives her face a gradation feel that brings everything towards those yellow, lively eyes. Almost instinctively, my hands also reach for her face. 

My heat skips a beat and I feel like it refused to pick it back up. As if I've had a sudden cardiac arrest and was being transported to a third world.  

We had nearly the same experiences since we got here, if anything I should've had the edge. Why is she so special? What do these eyes see?

Come to think of it, that isn't a hard question to answer at all. 

She really is special. She always wears her heart in her sleeves and is neither apologetic nor rude with it. 

She is always looking at the bright, beautiful side, but never shy away from confronting her worst feelings. 

Most of all, she has a way of engaging and inspiring people. 

It is almost as if she is the very definition of a good story.

The sudden realization comes to my mind! 

Stories! 

It has always been about stories.

She has had a constant stream of skill points whenever she felt free to tell stories, and we'd get ours when she managed to inspire us with it. When we clashed, and she was pouting, there were no more skill points!

When I was with Daniel, no stories were being told. And when I was with Lily, her stories were so superficial I didn't really engage.

This world has no mythology, so people don't get their skill points regularly!

I check my available points. Three right now.

Lemme think of something … 

"Joy" I signal her to sit and smile, she seems to have understood what is happening and returned it "Have you ever heard of the Floating Knight? He was a simple knight, but one day while picking roses to give to his crush, he got cursed by the fickle Snake Demon. She created a parasite that eats him from the inside. Now he has to fight the demon legion and end the curse before he gets too light and floats into space and pops […]"

I got a bit too excited and got into tangents, and would rarely choose the best words, but Joy was enjoying it all. She looked at me as if I was the whole world, and so I continued on. My own characters were moving me, I got genuinely upset when one of them started trauma dumping, even though I was the one who created that. 

"At the end of that day, with all of his insides eaten, his friends attached each a chain to one of his limbs and fought as a coordinated unit against the Snake demon, who got overwhelmed by the flurry of blows and flying chains!"

At that point, I was trying to act out how the Snake Demon was dodging and getting hit and finally fallen to the ground, when I hear clapping. Two people clapping. 

That old man was sitting beside Joy, I cannot tell when he arrived.

"You've come a long way!" He says, "Honestly, I was a bit skeptical about you, but I guess she does have a good eye."

"Who are you after all?" 

They both laugh a bit and he completes

"Hohoho, Can't you recognize what you want even when it is right in front of you?"

Oh, I got it. This is the author. 

I've also understood it, he is never going to ban Daniel. Don wasn't cheating or being a bad person. I don't even know he was doing something wrong. He was just not telling a good story.

"You know, I get it all now, but … There is still something I'd like to ask you."

"Go on."

"Are you from this world or from the other one?"

"I was born in the other one, but I'm only the true me here. This is a world I created out of grief for my little daughter, Sofia. She was diagnosed with microcephaly, and … unfortunately" He becomes more hesitant with his words, "passed away before birth. She didn't even get to live, and I was ..."

He full stops, but neither me nor Joy had any words.

"I couldn't get past how unfair it is for children to die like that. So I created this World. I created a city with means for jobs, politics, and religion and let them live as they wanted. A second chance." He stops again, briefly, and with some discomfort continues, "I just wasn't ready for a group of children as ... traumatized ... as those from the Demha regime."

"Why do those kids follow Daniel so faithfully?" I ask

"They don't. They follow Demha and his religious dogmas. However, Daniel was made into a martyr figure. Almost mythological in nature and the base of the propaganda of the regime. So they do see him as something to be followed or worshiped, but they aren't loyal to him."

That means beating Daniel wouldn't be enough. We have to beat anyone that might fill the power vacuum he leaves and then inspire change into them.

"That is it! I know what we have to do!" I declare from the depths of my soul "This world might have a temple, but it doesn't have any myths. We have to be the Legends. Everybody will hear my name from ages to come!"

Behold the beginning of the epic of Yapowe, the Bold!