Spiteful Healer-Chapter 336: Fan Mail

Eli blinked at the holographic display hovering in front of him, hung on the underside of his sim-box’s lid. The option for the Shattered World Online greyed itself out. It moved to the bottom of the list of available simulations, with Office Simulation 2090 taking its place at the top, autoselecting itself and waiting for his input.

He took a moment to process what’d happened. If this Mike person could spy on everything they did, including their in-game communications, he must’ve already been watching him to see the exchange with Shinji and Rakkan.

“What a paranoid little asshole.”

Eli opened the top of the sim-box and headed to a small shelf where he’d set up a food printer. His roommate's sim-box was closed and in use, but the television on the wall was still playing a livestream from the game world.

The streamer had 1,2k viewers, was level 53, and in the middle of a dungeon filled with bubbles, fighting blue frog-monsters that stood upright.

Eli pressed a few buttons on the printer while watching the show until a BLT sandwich came out, and he bit into it, the lettuce crunching in his mouth. He plopped on his bed, leaned back, and ate while watching, but his mind was elsewhere.

Now what do I do? No point studying; I’m ahead of where I need to be in all my classes. No more classes for the day. No friends living nearby…

This thought prompted him to open his contacts list and see that Derrick, Selena, his mom, and Renault were all logged out of the gameworld. He called up all of them at once and had answers within seconds.

“Yo, you guys get banned too?” Renault spoke first.

“Not just me. Your father, and Synopse as well.” Jillian said, her words directed at Eli.

“What the hell’d we get banned for? I just got to Savringard, the tournament is gonna start soon!” Darkshot complained.

“My mom is already on the phone with Averon customer support, trying to figure it out. None of us cheated or anything, right?” Selena said.

Eli let loose a sigh of guilt into the call. “It’s my fault.” The others went silent, expecting an explanation. “The Averon employee was trying to get some dirt on the acting leader. Apparently, there’s some infighting now that the lead designers are in jail. He must’ve overheard my conversation with Rakkan and used it as an excuse to ban all of us.”

“Hah? That’s stupid. Why would that be grounds to ban us?” Jillian scoffed.

“The head of security’s been cheating for VGN. He hates us, and now that he’s in control, he wants to keep it that way. I guess, because you guys were my former party members, he doesn’t want to risk us playing the game and messing up his position of power, or something like that. Look, sorry, I should’ve quit while I was ahead. I’ll try to get this sorted out.”

“It doesn’t sound like it’s your fault, though,” Selena chimed in quickly.

“If I’d made a decision sooner, it wouldn’t have happened. I’ll get back to you guys in a bit,” Eli ended the call and dialed Shinji, but got Tommy instead.

He spoke before Eli had a chance to.

“We’re already on it. Andrew’s called an emergency shareholder meeting. We won’t let this stand; we’ve got lawyers at the ready, don’t worry.” Tommy blurted out, sounding angrier than Eli’d ever heard him. “Just hang tight, trust in us, we’ve got your back.”

“Right… more than me, please make sure you get my friends unbanned,” Eli said.

“Copy that,” Tommy hung up.

Eli relayed the information to the others and was left once more with just his sandwich and the frog raid. He was surprised by how entertaining it was to watch someone else play. He had it in mind to change the channel, his fingers hovering over his wrist implant, but something else happened on the stream that kept him watching a bit longer. He’d never seen monsters like this, and the livestreamer’s party was taking on a whole lot of them at once, using various tactics Eli’d never used due to the variance in group composition.

It wasn’t until long after he’d finished his sandwich, when the group took a break to recover their stamina and mana, that he finally managed to pull himself away and flick through a few broadcasts.

There was no mention of his ban anywhere—no outrage, fanfare, or anything. No one knew it’d happened, not on VGN broadcasts, or non-VGN broadcasts. From everyone fawning over everything he did two weeks ago, to his character being snuffed out in silence. Months of hard work, down the drain.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but was getting tired of being left alone with his thoughts, so he got up and walked over to his sim-box, booting up his office simulation.

Within, he had a blinking invitation from another vacant office, labeled ‘Aegis’ Fan-mail’.

“Ah, what the hell,” Eli took the invitation and entered a large office with heaps and heaps of white envelopes all around him. There was a cosy, pink recliner at the center with the headrest tilted back and the leg rest up, and a small table with piles of neatly stacked letters, already opened, labeled with holographic words floating above them.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Saved for Aegis.

Hae-won must have sorted through a bunch of letters and put these aside for me to check.

Eli set the chair upright and grabbed a letter from the top of the stack, flicking it open. Having never opened fan mail before, he was expecting a white paper with written words on it.

Instead, when the envelope opened up, a projection of a screen materialized in front of him.

He’d recognized the man at the center of the screen right away; it was Leonard, captain of the Sky Darling in Kalmoore.

“Hello there, dear, I’ve noticed you haven’t been streaming lately,” He spoke seductively, wearing nothing but a set of pink bath robes loosely tied shut. He was atop his Airship, with several players and NPCs standing about, borderline nude.

“Understandable. Everyone needs some time to wind down once in a while. I just wanted to let you know that if you ever want a lovely evening of,” Leonard winked, “relaxation. There’s always an open bed up here on the Sky Darling. Both for you and your lovely mother. Do give her my regards, will you?” He puckered his lips and blew a kiss towards the camera. “We’re forever your ‘biggest’ fans, if you know what I mean,” he said while wiggling his hips.

Eli cringed, shut the envelope, and tossed it away. “Why the hell would Hae-won save that one?”

He shook his head, now hesitant to reach for the next at the top of the pile. Nothing else to do, though, he snatched it and flipped it open, wincing in anticipation.

The screen opened to a close-up of a young, dark-skinned female elf with elongated ears and dark purple hair.

“1 sec, I got it. Okay,” She fumbled with the point of view, causing the camera to shake while setting it on a table, and backed up from it.

Behind her, a row of players stood shoulder to shoulder, ranging from 130 to 160. Above the dark elf’s head stood [Dero - Level 150], with several floating white swords around her, indicating the battlemaster class. Even with this information, though, Eli had no clue who it was.

She lined herself up with the others and turned to face the camera, waving.

“Hi, Aegis! Or Eli. Whichever you prefer, it’s me, Ashley! We have a few classes together. I noticed you’ve been down lately, so I,” she got a nudge from a burly orc beside her. “We decided to send you this message. On behalf of everyone on Tarolas,”

Everyone joined in together to say the last words simultaneously. “Thank you for saving our island!”

“Three cheers for Aegis!” The burly orc raised his hands, but Dero moved to stop him.

“What? Dad, no, no one does that anymore, stop,” she shouted-whispered, but the orc was not deterred.

“Hip hip, hooray!” The others joined in. “Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip hooray!”

Loud cheers and claps followed, with some colorful displays of playful magic.

Dero ran back to the camera hastily, cutting off the others' view. “Hope this cheers you up and you feel better soon!”

The message ended.

Eli leaned back, his lips upturned slightly as he set the letter back on the table gently and reached for another.

It was a message from his former high-school teachers. They took turns telling him how proud of him they all were, and that they knew he was destined for greatness ‘the moment he set foot in their classrooms’, or some variations of that. It ended with Mr. Maxwell, who’d given him advice on the Shattered World in his early days.

“Glad to see you’ve finally understood what it means to put your heart into something. It’s important not to trample on the dreams of others, even if you can’t understand them.”

The message ended without Eli fully understanding what he was trying to get across, but their familiar faces reminded him of a simpler time. He became addicted to opening the letters and went through a few more.

It felt like when he was a young child running to the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Knowing Hae-won had hand-picked these letters for him meant they were all meaningful in some way, and not a single one failed to draw emotions out of him.

When he’d reached the final letter at the bottom of the pile, he felt a pit of emptiness open up while lifting it from the table.

He flipped it open, and a wide view of a restaurant appeared.

It wasn’t virtual; this message was recorded in the real world. A long table of chairs filled with people he’d never met before, but somehow all looked familiar.

One of them, a young boy in a wheelchair, was waving profusely and smiling at the end, next to a 20-ish-year-old woman standing directly in front of the camera. She held a glass of wine and tapped it with a spoon, the ringing sound quieting the others' chatter.

“Welcome to our first annual Night Hunters guild meet-up, Aegis! I know you’re not officially a member of the guild, but all of us wanted to send you a message anyway, to make it feel like you’re here with us. Thank you for all of the fun and excitement you’ve brought to our guild over the last year-”

“And PvP. Thanks for the PvP.” An old, grey-haired man with broad shoulders interrupted her, getting a few chuckles.

“Shut it, Herilon,” the lady speaking, who Aegis assumed to now be Quinn, replied. “My brother, here,” she patted the shoulder of the wheelchair-bound boy, “Is the reason I set out to make Kalmoore the best, safest island to play on, so that we could have fun stress-free fun. The stress part went out the window, but we’ve all had loads of fun thanks to you, and made enough money to afford nano-surgery.”

She had tears swelling in her eyes, and Eli wasn’t the only one to see it. The others stopped giggling and whispering, quieting down to silence. “What you’ve done for us goes well beyond just a game, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“Aw, don’t cry, sis, it’s embarrassing,” The boy called up to her. She laughed, rubbed her eyes, and took a seat.

“Yo, Aegis, you’ll never guess who's actually the youngest female active member of Congress,” the old man, player behind Herilon, began waving a drumstick across the table at a young woman with wavy black hair. She tilted her head down to hide her face, but Eli spotted a plate filled with chopped carrots in front of her.

He audibly gasped. “No way.”

“Makes perfect sense when you think about how much time she spends logged in. Congress works what, like, one day a year?” Another player commented, causing the table to burst out in laughter.

They went around the table introducing themselves as the character they played. None of them looked anything like Eli would’ve ever imagined. Except for Tullan, the player behind him looked like a taller, hairier version of his dwarf, without the accent.

The message ended for Eli was ready for it to end, and the envelope shut on its own. He put it back on the table alongside all of the others.

His cheeks ached from smiling so much, but left in silence, alone again, his expression settled.

He was sure he’d finally made up his mind about quitting with the ban, but now more than ever, he wanted to log back in and play with everyone again.

Even if I wanted to, that’s gone. VGN and that Mike guy took it away.

Eli sighed. He was back to square one, with no idea what to do about his future.