Chapter 3: Flambirdge Ethernet Realm

The ethernet is a connection between the computers of Sunder, countless magic circuits blending together to make a virtual world that is not quite totally unreal. It was not planned. It was not intentionally created. Only after the fact of its existence could no longer be hidden was it somewhat tamed, and safe areas were formed. Yet… there is much hidden, much obscured about the nature of the ethernet.

On the ethernet, in Flambirdge’s homerealm, there were countless avatars of both full-dived users (those whose minds are fully immersed in the ether) and those simply using a terminal. There was very few avatars that were of the same form as their owners. Part of this was that you can with not too much knowledge, change your appearance. The other part was everyone, when they first enter the ethernet… they do it with a form not the same as their own in the physical world, a form not chosen by awakened will.

In same manner, the space of the ethernet can be sculpted, formed into this and that, ethereal beings can be made too. Just don’t think too much of the consequences of making magic circuits in a world born from magic circuits.

The Flambirdge Official Homerealm was a quite artistic piece. The sky was a mirror. There were trees and buildings of shadow and blades. Around lakes of multicoloured flame strode the mascot of Flambirdge, that blade beaked flamingo. The ground was covered with gems of many colours, forming all kinds of beautiful patterns.

The song of the Flambirdge birds were the songs of Flambirdge the band.

The majority of the avatars were however, gathered together at one particular building. A flower of darkness and swords. The virtual concert hall. In all of Flambirdge’s concerts they held two concerts simultaneously. One in the ethernet, and one in the real world.

People were happily chatting to each other.

[BackwaysLife] <Who’s best in Flambirdge my fellow birdgers?>

Well, they were happily chatting to each other until that guy showed up.

[Purepurepururu]<Uhhh… I think they’re all>

[CastleInPrincess]<Here we go again>

[Grinnerilla]<Zozozoz>

[BackwaysLife]<Eh?>

Several laughing cries of zoz came up as for why they laughed like that? Well, memetics is a funny thing.Why some were laughing is another matter that will become clear shortly.

<It’s gotta be Doudozolo, she’s such a cool beauty. I wanna be just like that!>

<By following Doudozolo one day we’ll become cool beauties!>

<Ahhh, I’d love a cool beauty. It’d really keep my heat down>

<Zozozoz, I see you are a man that also likes things cool, my brother>

<TUKU FANS UNITE, TUKU IS BEST GIRL! MOST ENERGY>

<ALL HAIL GODDESS TUKU!>

<TUKU I LOVE YOU!>

<Tuku does have nice hips>

<Ahem, if I may interject, I happen to be an expert on this subject, you must understand that due to the ratios and alignment of the shroud and…>

<Cool beauty is better than some fat hips!>

<What did you just say about hips? How about you come say that IRL, come to Dome and you’ll see what we do to people like you>

<He doesn’t like hips>

<What a plebian>

<I wish my hips were like that>

<Doudozolo sings better!>

<Take that back!>

<Never! Cool Beauty for life!>

<Represent! I come to fight for cool beauties, worldwide!>

<Fight? Haha, I hacktrace you to IRL bet you are lardtub!>

<Get lost in my circuit mazes fool!>

<HIPS>

<COOL BEAUTY>

The commotion grew larger and larger and the more tech-savvy people even formed battle instances.

[BackwaysLife]<I regret everything>

<zozozoz>

<zozozoz>

[CastleinPrincess]<They’ll keep going like that for days if we don’t stop them. Ok, deploy the solution!>

<zozozzozoz>

[Grinerilla]<Hey, isn’t Yvemmai really nice? Like the kindest person you ever saw?>

The commotion stopped instantly.

<Yeah>

<Truth! Raw truth!>

<She’s so young, but I wish she was my mother>

<I wish she was the whole world’s mother!>

The fans united, on the subject of Yvemmai’s kindness and began to recount tales of such, along with personal experiences of her firm and just compassion. Yet… in a short amount of time, some other commotion had started up.

<Fake? What?>

<A scam? No!>

A new avatar logged in as this commotion reached fever pitch. It was a spiral, at times a person with a comically angry beast’s head. The whole avatar was amber in colour and looked as if it was made from crystal. The name that would come to one’s mind when one looked or spoke with this avatar was…

[HoundReturnsToHisOwn]

Too lazy to parse the stream of information from so many people talking and shouting, HoundReturns pestered a person on the edge of the crowd that was mobbing the concert hall.

<Hey, I was born in the last second, just in time to see that some sort of mess is happening at the front of the line for the Smogpolis concert, newfriend, what is happening?>

[Purepurepururu]<Oh, its just terrible, there’s been a scam! Some people’s tickets are actually fake! Both the virtual tickets and the ones in Smogpolis!>

[Grinnerilla]<It isn’t a complete disaster, they’re giving tickets to another concert that they’ll hold for all the poor folks who got scammed>

Picky swore, and dove out of the ethernet with his [HoundReturnsToHisOwn] avatar.

What nobody was noticing however, was that everyone who supposedly got scammed had one particular attribute in common.