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Sep 28, 2025

So, I haven't said anything the past week in case I got bored and tossed it out, but I ended up finishing an ATH chapter! Turns out an endless drabble, unplanned project is a perfect cure after spending two years suffering over an over-edited personal project!

Anyways, here ya go!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

My account is private on Ao3 now, so you'll need an account to view it. But since making an account can take several weeks, I'll also post it under the cut below for those who don't have one.

It was 7:26 pm when the morning sun rose over the blocky horizon in Underminer. Ray traced sunbeams eased into the wooden home as Rockman reorganized the bedroom for the fifth time that week. He stepped back and dusted his hands— not that there was dust to speak of— and inspected his handiwork.

He had fashioned two beds into a hopefully functional bunkbed, decorated with bookshelves and a side table with a clay pot and cherry blossom sapling. He had taken care to shape the room so he could keep the wide window and gave it an additional seating area. He enjoyed looking out over the view of the lake and the snow capped mountain in the distance.

He had built the two story home himself, the roof tailored with blue shingle blocks and windows with flower planters and shutters. It was by no means the fanciest house on the server, but he had taken pride in filling it with details like his own personal dream home.

A day after finishing it, a second bed appeared in his bedroom.

At first, he had emptied out the ‘craft room’ and turned it into a second bedroom for Netto. The bed reappeared right next to his later that day. Rockman then attempted to move it to the other side of the room, only for it to be shoved against his bed once again. By this time, Netto’s blocky wooden shack at the spawn point had been forgotten, and now Rockman had to contend with a new whirlwind of a roommate.

It was better not to fight against the current of the typhoon, so Rockman had decided it was time to expand and redecorate the room.

Speaking of unstoppable forces, the front door downstairs swung open and shut with a bang as Netto rushed into the home.

“Hey, Rock, do you have any obsidian? I want to make a tower on the mountain.”

Rock descended the stairs and spotted Netto rifling through the dozens of chests neatly aligning the walls of the storage room. His game avatar was nearly as lively as he was, directed by his VR headset and twin controllers for animation. The only thing motionless on Netto was his legs, which lacked advanced VR controls that was way beyond what his monthly allowance could afford.

Rockman was surprised when Netto chose to upload Megaman as his game avatar. It took him a while to get used to seeing the familiar flash of orange and black around each corner, even when it was adorned with iron armor. Still, it was endearing to be able to work beside a Net Navi version of his brother. It was as if they could both shift between worlds, their lives forever intertwined.

Right now, however, the VR’s facial recognition captured an expression of mischief on the orange navi frame.

“Why do you need obsidian?” Rockman asked skeptically.

“I told you, for a tower, I only need, like, ten.”

“Yeah, but why obsidian?”

“I want to build a canon.”

That sounded like an idea ready to go wrong, but Rockman opened the raw materials chest anyways. Instead of sorted iron and coal, he found saplings, a bone, three seeds, and seven feathers.

“Netto!” He exclaimed, “I told you to stop dumping your inventory in here! There’s a system!”

“How am I supposed to know what goes where?” Netto shot back.

“There’s signs!”

Netto waved him off. Rockman emulated an inhale as he prepared another talk on organization when he heard a cry at the front door.

“Netto? Netto, are you online?”

Rockman rushed to open the door and found Meiru on his front porch. Her avatar was modeled to look similar to herself using an off-site character creator. It was motionless, aside from the head, tethered to mouse and keyboard controls. Still, the tone of her voice was more than enough to clue him in on that something was wrong.

“Oh! Rockman, it’s you!”

“I’m here too!” Netto called out, pushing his way past the door. “What’s wrong, Meiru?”

Meiru’s tone melted into despair. “Netto! It’s horrible! Prokofiev is gone!”

——

Meiru’s home was a simple three room house in the middle of a meadow. It was filled with flowers and cherry blossom trees with a small farm in the back. She had seven cats and three sheep and up till now, one wolf named Prokofiev.

Rockman knelt beside the dog house where a single chest had been placed inside. It held a single bone.

“Maybe Prokfevev wandered off,” Netto stumbled over the foreign name, “or he chased a monster that hit you.”

“I told Prokofiev to sit in his house before I logged off.” Meiru explained. “There’s no way he would have gotten lost!”

“Maybe there was lag and he got killed by a sneaker?”

Rockman stood and shook his head. “No, a sneaker would have left a hole where it exploded. Did you put this chest here, Meiru?”

She shook her head. “No, I found it there when I logged on.”

Rockman turned to Netto. “So someone placed it here.”

Netto’s eyes widened. “Wait, but that means…”

“Someone killed Prokofiev.”

Meiru gasped. “But why would someone do that?”

Rockman raised a hand to his chin. “An accident, perhaps? They didn’t leave a message, though.”

“They didn’t even leave enough bones to tame a new one.” Netto grumbled.

Meiru’s voice wavered. “I don’t want a new one, I want Prokofiev…”

The AI in Underminer wasn’t nearly as advanced as a Net Navi. Regardless, Meiru— and most humans for that matter— grew very attached to their digital friends. Rockman could sympathize. He would have felt the same way if there was some way to take a tamed wolf out of Underminer and bring it to his home computer, only for a virus to eat it while he was away. After all, he was still considered ‘most humans.’

“Can we roll back the server?” Rockman asked.

Netto shrugged. “We did so much though. We’ve been playing all day and I didn’t even see him die in chat.”

That was true, if Prokofiev had died while they were online, they would have seen an alert in the global chat. “When did you last log out?” Rockman asked Meiru.

“Three days ago.”

Netto inhaled through his teeth. “I don’t think we can do that. Dex has been on all weekend, it wouldn’t be fair to him.”

“It’s not fair to Prokofiev.” Meiru muttered.

Rockman crossed his arms as he considered their options. “Well,” he finally said, “maybe we can talk to Dad. He’s hosting the server for us, maybe he can do something.”

Netto attempted to smash his fists together, which resulted in open hands clipping into each other as the hollow clack of plastic echoed over his mic. “In the mean time, we need to bring whoever did this to justice!”

“Justice?” Meiru asked.

“Yeah!” Netto huffed. “Killing Prokofiv and then sneaking off and not telling you? It’s a hit and run!”

Rockman raised a hand. “That’s for vehicles, you’re missing the hit part.”

“Maybe they used a minecart.”

“There’s no tracks.”

“Maybe they hid those too.”

“They set up tracks just to kill Prokofiev and then removed them?”

Netto threw up his hands. “We don’t know! That’s why we have to look for evidence and find out! It’s a mystery!”

Rockman and Meiru exchanged glances.

Netto climbed onto the edge of the nearby marble fountain and spread his arms. “There’s a murderer on the loose, and we need to find out who it is! We’ll bring justice to Prokodev and ban whoever did this!”

“Isn’t that a bit harsh?” Meiru asked.

“We’ll bring them to trial!” Netto corrected. “Then we can figure out their punishment for their horrific crimes.”

“I guess that could work.” Meiru mused.

“Sure, but how would we find out who did this?” Rockman asked.

Netto jumped off the fountain and waved a hand. “With evidence, my dear Rockman.” He said in a grand attempt at an East-Ameroppean accent. “We need to check out the scene of the crime. Look for tracks, clues, or fingerprints.”

Rockman glanced at the cubic doghouse. He wasn’t sure how they’d find any of those things in a video game.

“Did you hear anything strange since you last logged off?” Netto asked Meiru.

“Like… in the game?” She replied, confused.

“No, like, from the others. Did anyone send you an email?”

“Not that Roll told me.”

Rockman exhaled— an old habit from Torishima. It looked like it was up to him to find any clues. He circled the pink, wooden dog house and found no traces that anyone had been here aside from the chest inside. It was pink, like the rest of the cherry wood house, so whoever crafted it must have grabbed the materials from Meiru’s storage. He crouched, setting his hand over its surface as if he’d experience the sudden rush of texture and it would give him all the answers. Instead, hundreds of touch sensors lit up underneath his fingertips, an emulation of the real world.

The same could be said for the rest of Underminer. It was blocks in a video game, there would be no footprints for him to follow or strands of hair to analyze like in his mother’s crime dramas on TV. Rockman could not leave the smudges of his fingerprints on any of these windows. It was a static, blocky world built with minimal rules.

Something squeaked. Rockman jumped to his feet and looked around, wondering if it had come from someone’s mic. Netto and Meiru had wandered away and into the garden, where he could no longer hear them. He opened his option menu and switched on game captions. Text lit up the bottom of his HUD; footsteps toward the garden, the crackle of the fire on is right, a sheep bleated at his left. Then, another squeak to his right.

Rockman followed the sound, slowly and carefully till the sound lit up both sides of his HUD. Either the sound was directly in front of him, behind him, or…

He dug into the soil, tearing up the fenced dog pen. The fourth dirt block revealed a narrow hole straight down into the depths. A bat escaped into the open air, fluttering off toward the house and he leaned over for a closer look. As he shifted, he could spot the distant light of torches.

“Netto!” He shouted.

Netto and Meiru rushed over to look.

“What is that?” Netto pointed.

“A hole.” Rockman replied.

“I know it’s a hole, but what’s it doing here?”

Before Rockman could respond, Netto jumped down the pit. He heard the painful crunch of damage in the distance and winced. “You okay?”

“Yeah, come down here, I got a water bucket.”

Rockman looked at Meiru, shrugged, and jumped down after him. His fall was broken by a block of water that Netto quickly scooped back up in his bucket. It was a tight fit, but they stood in the endless hall of a one block wide, and two block high tunnel.

“The strip mines.” Rockman muttered.

“The culprit must have used it to make a quick getaway.” Netto mused.

“We can try to look around, but they extend all over the server. It could take us ages to find another clue.”

Netto tilted his head as he crossed his arms. “Hmm, don’t the other net navis use these tunnels?”

“Sort of, we use them to get around.”

Netto lit up. “We should ask the other net navis! They’re online a lot more than us, maybe one of them saw something.”

“Good idea. I’ll go to The Hall and ask.”

“Sounds fancy, let’s go!”

Rockman raised his hands. “Er, sorry, you’ll have to stay behind.”

Netto reeled. “What? Why?”

“The Hall is for navis only.”

“But I’m a navi!”

Rockman smiled. “Sorry, avatars don’t count.”

“I mean, I was a navi! For two weeks!”

“They don’t know that.”

“Roll knows.”

“The others don’t.”

Netto folded his arms and frowned. “Why the secrecy anyways? What’s so special about The Hall?”

“I’ve told you before, nothing. It’s just a place for net navis to work without interrupting their operators.”

“Sounds special if we’re not allowed down there.”

“It’s not. But if an operator finds it, the other navis will just move it somewhere else. I promise I’ll show you when everyone is done playing.”

Netto huffed and Rockman could hear his foot tap against the chair before he shook his head. “Alright, fine. I’ll follow the tunnel and see if I find anything up here. Let me know if you find anything.”

“I will.” --

Operators were best at handling creative work, but being programs, net navis were extremely efficient at repetitive, simple chores like mining. Since net navis were often tasked with grinding materials for their operators, a lot of time was spend hollowing out stone for castles and marble for decor. Grinding thousands of stone blocks meant one navi might have hundreds of other materials that another navi might need, so The Hall was built to help net navis working together.

The Hall, out of context, might have conjured images of giant dwarven fortresses built into the deepest depths of the server. In reality, it was a maze of tunnels and mined pockets that anyone who wasn’t a program would get lost in. It was built somewhere at mid-level so it would be quicker to access, and at the heart was a large, messy open space with a large slab of cobblestone in the center. Several signs scrawled with material requests were on the board, and the strip mines pocketed the walls all the way to the ceiling like a beehive. Some of the strip mines had been fashioned into railways where minecarts could transport navis to important biomes quickly, but even those were hastily slapped together in a twisted maze of rails. It would have been faster to use Deep Portals, but without diamonds none of them had a way to efficiently harvest obsidian.

Rockman approached the request board. Diamonds were a top priority, but there was a new request for marble from Yai. There was nothing about Prokofiev.

“Hey, Rock!” A voice behind him chirped.

He turned, and saw Roll tuck her hands behind her back as she leaned forward. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you down here.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been a bit busy.”

She nodded. “You’ve been playing with the other operators.”

He ran his fingers through the tufts of hair at the back of his neck, only to meet his rigid polygons instead. “Ah, sorry. I really should come down here more.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re an operator too, after all.”

Rock shuffled awkwardly and Roll stepped closer till their faces were a hand’s length apart. He leaned back as she inspected him, willing his emotion routines to not spread to his cheeks, when she tilted her head and pulled back.

“Did you build a house?”

Rock blinked. “Oh, uh, yeah.”

“Did you use a blueprint?”

“No, I made it myself.” He laughed nervously. “It’s not perfect, but it’s mine, I guess.”

She smiled, before her gaze fell onto his hands and she tucked her own in front of her. He was about to ask what was wrong when she perked up once again and danced back on her heels. “So, what brings you down here?”

“Ah, well, I’m actually here to look into Prokofiev.”

Roll frowned. “Oh, yeah, Meiru was devastated. I told her to ask Netto for help, since it’s his server.”

“Yeah, we’re going to ask Dad what he can do, but in the mean time Netto wants to find out who did it. Did you see anything down here?”

“No, why?”

He pointed to the hundreds of strip-mining holes that lined the walls. “We found a secret tunnel underneath the doghouse that connected to one of the strip mines. I thought since we use them to navigate, one of you might have seen something.”

Roll considered the tunnels. “I haven’t heard anything from Gutsman or Glyde.”

Rockman deflated. “Ah, I see.”

“But there’s someone who uses these tunnels more than we do.”

“There is?”

Roll grinned and spun to face him. “Hmm, what do I get if I tell you?”

Rock froze. “What do you mean?”

She crept closer, placing a hand on his iron chest piece. “We use this place to trade and you haven’t helped any of us gather materials for our operators. I think it’s about time you helped one of us out, don’t you?”

Rock sheepishly looked away. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you guys on your own.”

Roll hooked her fingers into the neckline of the armor, her trap sprung. “Well, then let’s trade. I tell you who I’ve seen and you invite me to your house.”

Rockman’s head snapped back up. “My house?!”

“Just the two of us.”

“Just us?!” He exclaimed. Now he was absolutely sure his emotion routines had reddened his cheeks.

“Yeah, I want to see it. Sound fair?”

“Y-yeah, I guess.”

She smiled, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Perfect, how about tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?!”

“Tomorrow. Netto will be home, right?”

“Yeah, but—“

“Oh, and Dekao.”

“Dekao?!” Rockman sputtered. “Why?!”

She giggled. “No, no! Dekao is the one who’s underground more than we are. When he’s online, that’s all he and Gutsman do! You wanted to know that, right?”

“O-oh! Yeah.” If it was possible to have a second heart attack…

“Then it’s settled!” She turned, her ponytail flicking behind her. “I’ll meet you tomorrow, okay?”

“O-okay…” There was no way he could tell Netto about this. --

It took a while to get a hold of Dekao. His house was a dirt square in the middle of a deforested field with a line of trees to farm in the distance. A hole patched with cobblestone marked the entrance to his mine and inside his crafting benches and work stations haphazardly lined the walls. Chests were crammed wherever there was room and a bed was shoved into the corner.

Rockman left the hut and shook his head at Netto. “Looks like he’s not here yet.”

“What are you talking about?!” A loud voice proclaimed, “I’m right here!”

From the ground, Dekao jumped onto the surface like a trapdoor spider, quickly filling in the hole behind him. Netto jumped back with surprise, and Dekao whipped around with a speed that only a mouse and keyboard could achieve.

“I heard Meiru’s in trouble! I came as fast as I could!” His avatar was a brightly colored Sentai ranger, complete with a cape that snapped against the physics engine at the barest motion. A set of Underminer iron armor overlayed his avatar’s bright red armor, clipping through the cape.

Netto wasted no time hopping forward to meet Dekao. “You better! You’re suspect number one!”

“Suspect?! In what?!” Dekao whirled to face Netto, and Rockman ducked to dodge the whip of his cape.

“In murder!” Netto accused.

“I didn’t murder nobody!” Dekao crossed his arms. “What about you? Maybe you murdered whoever-it-was and are trying to place the blame on me!”

“You don’t know what happened?” Rockman asked.

Dekao whipped around and Rockman once again sidestepped his physics sensitive cape. “What happened?! Is Meiru in trouble?! Does she need me?!”

“Someone killed Pawkoev.” Netto explained.

Dekao flicked around and Rockman dodged. “Who?”

“Her dog.”

“She has a dog?”

“Her wolf in Underminer.” Rockman explained, preemptively stepping back from the cape as Dekao faced him. “Someone killed him and left a bone in his doghouse. There was an escape tunnel underneath that led to the strip mines and the other navis say you use them more than anyone.”

Dekao raised his hands in exasperation. “Use them!? Are you kidding?! These strip mines are the worst thing in the server! I’m not using them, you can’t avoid them! They’re everywhere! I’ve been trying to find diamonds all week but they’re all gone!”

Rockman and Netto exchanged glances before Netto spoke. “Yeah, I did notice that. I didn’t think too much about it, I’ve been too busy building stuff.”

“I haven’t been able to find any either, I thought the strip mines were from you.” Rockman admitted.

“You think I could have done all this myself?! Well, actually, I could, I’m the best at this game, but someone beat me to it!”

“Who?” Netto asked.

Rockman hit the floor as Dekao turned to Netto. “Yaito! She’s the only person who has diamonds in the server! If anyone knows about Meiru’s dog, she does!” --

Up on a mountain, surrounded by wisterias and the rarest flowers in Underminer, was Yaito’s mansion. It was made almost entirely of diamond; chiseled diamond brick, diamond stairs, diamond panes, and more. Where there was no more diamond to fill, marble took its place. The roof was a deep blue sapphire that could only be found in rare ocean dungeons, and gold speckled the fron gardens as Netto and Rockman approached.

“Yaito? Are you here?” Netto called out.

There was no answer.

“Yaito?” He tried again.

“Use the doorbell!” Yaito’s voice chided from behind the door.

Netto looked around, confused. “Why? You know we’re here, you can hear us.”

“It’s rude to scream at people from the front porch! I have a doorbell.”

“I’m not screaming, we’re right here on proximity chat!” Netto countered.

Yaito didn’t answer.

Rockman sighed and pressed the small gold button beside the door.

A long, elegant sound rang from note blocks beneath the porch. The front door swung open, and Glyde gave them a bow.

“Hello, you’re here for Ms. Ayanokoji I presume?”

“Yaito, stop playing around!” Netto shouted and barged through the double doors.

Rockman gave Glyde a sympathetic smile, returned his bow, and followed Netto into the foyer. Twin stairs spiraled up to the second floor where Yaito watched from underneath a crystal chandelier.

“Don’t you know anything about decorum?!” She shouted, picking up her dress and descending the stairs.

Her avatar was custom made to be the splitting image of Yaito by a famous designer in Ameroppa. A pink, crystal crown adorned her head, and her long puffy dress was bejeweled with light blue diamonds. Blue transparent fairy wings fluttered on her back, but most impressively, the avatar followed Yaito’s live movements in real time.

While Netto had a headset and a set of controllers, Yaito had an entire VR studio of her own. It tracked all of her movements and displayed the game back to her in real time, where she could run around and interact with the world as if she was a net navi herself. She shuffled up to Netto and glared up at him like a fairy cotton candy princess. “You can’t just barge into my kingdom without invitation! There are protocols, schedules! I have to meet with the arc duke of Winterland next week!”

Rockman looked to Glyde, who smiled with a single nod in return. Yaito took roleplaying very seriously.

“Then clear your schedule!” Netto retorted. “I’ve got a murder to investigate!”

Yaito recoiled with a gasp. “A murder? Who?”

“Prokofiev,” Rockman filled in for Netto, “Meiru’s wolf. We think whoever killed him used your strip mining tunnels to escape.”

“Well, I assure you, my diamond mining company has nothing to do with it!” She snipped. “I am very selective about who I hire!”

“Hire?” Rockman asked.

“Of course!” She stepped back and held out her hands as she gestured to the mansion around her. “This world is an untapped market! It would have been irresponsible of me not to expand Ayanotech and bring this world into the industrial revolution! I brought my maids to harvest and automate resources. Once my wealth had grown, I bought out the local elections. Now, I am the princess of the rich country of Ayanoland! Nothing a little hard work couldn’t accomplish, of course.”

The room fell silent. Now that everyone had stopped talking, Rockman was able to hear the distant screams of monsters dying beneath his feet in what was presumably an automated mob farm.

“She’s brutal…” Netto muttered.

“So your maids are the reason no one can find diamonds?” Rockman asked.

“I’m just using whatever resources I have at my disposal.” Yaito winked. “However, they are taking an awful long time to gather marble. I have a winter gala coming up soon and I need to build a castle on the tallest peak of Winterland so I can host it!”

“Forget the diamonds, what about Profov?” Netto asked. “Did you hear anything about Meiru’s dog?”

Yaito whirled around, back turned to them. “I haven’t heard a thing! You’re being awfully rude barging in here and accusing a princess of murder! Maybe you should ask Dekao! He’s spent an awful lot of time with Meiru!”

Netto deflated. “The other navis said the same thing.”

Rockman shook his head. “I don’t think he did it. If he did, we would have noticed, he’s an awful liar.”

“Well who else are we gunna ask?” Netto exclaimed. “We’ve already talked to everyone on the server!”

Yaito turned back to them, brow furrowed. “Well, not everyone. Didn’t you invite one more person to the server?” --

The next morning, after many calls and emails to arrange a meeting, Rockman and Netto stood in one of the high offices of IPC. The door was solid wood— real wood, and the AC blasted the room with cold as Rockman shivered beneath his jacket. There was air here, texture, and sound had an almost fourth dimensional depth that video games had yet to be able to capture. In front of them was a well used, but clean class desk and a large plush office chair for long hours. Both were empty, but that didn’t last long.

Enzan shoved open the door, hanging up a call on his PET and storming over to his desk. He sat down, scootting up to the chair before resting his head against his clasped fingers. There was several ticks of silence before he spoke in a low, level voice.

“You came here to my office, convinced Blues to reorganize my schedule, and interrupted an important ONB mission, so you could ask me about a dog in a video game?”

“Prokeff is very important to Meiru.” Netto announced with confidence.

Enzan glanced at Rockman from behind his hands. “This, I expected from Hikari, but from you, Saito?”

Rockman awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well, uh, we’re interviewing everyone who is on the server.”

“Then why are you here?” Enzan asked.

“Because that means you too!” Netto huffed. “You have a house at spawn, don’t you?”

Enzan lowered his hands. “I played because Saito emailed me about it. I logged on with Blues, followed a tutorial, and afterwards decided it was a waste of my time. I have net criminals to track. I have my father’s company to take care of. I assure you, I have better things to do than run around in the dead of night killing videogame pets.”

Without the video game to hold up his avatar, Netto looked as if he would melt. “Come on, it had to be someone. Everyone says they didn’t do it.”

“Almost every murder would be so much easier if people just confessed to their crime.” Enzan replied. “But you have better things to be doing with your time too. Is this really worth running around for? Why not just give Sakurai another dog?”

“She wants Prokffv.” Netto replied glumly.

“We still haven’t asked Dad,” Rockman replied. “Scilabs is in the area, we can go ask.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Netto muttered.

Enzan stood from his desk. “Right. Go ask Dr. Hikari and get things cleared up. That’s the easiest solution for everyone. Next time, don’t contact me unless it’s an emergency, are we clear?”

Netto waved him off. “Whatever, you need to play video games more and loosen up!”

“And you should play them less and focus on your grades.” Enzan retorted as he opened his office door.

Netto stuck out his tongue and stepped out into the lobby. Rockman moved to follow, but before he could leave Enzan shut the door in front of him. He stepped closer, hand still on the handle as he spoke in a low voice.

“Hey, what’s the dog’s real name?”

“Prokofiev.” Rockman answered.

Enzan chuckled. “Of course.”

He opened the door and let Rockman leave. --

Dr. Hikari led the two into his office with a hop in his step. Ever since Rockman’s return from Torishima there was a new kind of excitement to them visiting him at work. There was no longer one kid running around the halls alone, but two, depending on Rockman’s materialization timer. In a way, these halls were Rockman’s first home, first room, and first years. Now that he was able to visit in the material world, Dr. Hikari had an extra spark to his eye when he brought them to his office.

“The server rooms are downstairs, but we can access it from here.” He said cheerfully. “I’m not very familiar with this game, but let’s see what we can do to fix things.”

“Thanks Dad!” Netto chirped. “This will make Meiru’s day!”

He pulled out a chair and began typing into the console. Once the server information was up, he pulled open a list of commands. “What was her dog’s name?”

“Prokofiev.” Rockman replied.

“How do you spell that?”

Rockman spelled it out and spotted his dad typing the command to spawn in a new wolf. Netto stared at the screen in awe, unaware of what was happening.

“This is the server?”

“Yep! Or at least, this is how the computer sees the server, in a way.”

“It’s all just words and numbers.”

“All computers are just words and numbers.”

“Even Rockman?”

Rockman gave him a grin. “You’re full of more words than I am.”

Netto bat him with the back of his hand and Rockman laughed. Netto watched the string of commands scroll up for a moment longer before he pointed at the screen. “What is that? It says Dekao blew up.”

Dr. Hikari adjusted his glasses. “So it does. When someone dies in the game, it shows up here on the console.”

“Even Meiru’s dog?”

Rockman saw where this was going. “Oh yeah! We can check the server log from here! Meiru’s dog should show up there, right?”

Dr. Hikari pulled open the logs and searched the name. Sure enough, the game posted a death message two days ago at 2:37 am.

Prokofiev fell from a high place.

Netto squinted, before leaning back with disbelief. “What? How is that possible? Meiru lives in the middle of a field!”

“Not only that, we still don’t know who killed Prokofiev.” Rockman muttered.

Netto leapt forward and leaned over the desk for a closer look. “Maybe there is something in there that can give us a hint to what happened!”

Dr. Hikari leaned back, hands up as Netto scoured the logs. After a moment, Netto jammed a finger against the screen. “Are you sure this is my server? It says all these people kept logging in, but I only invited me and my friends.”

Dr. Hikari took a closer look. “Oh! Those are Yaito’s assistants.”

“Assistants?” Rockman asked. “I’ve never seen any of them log in.”

“That’s because I told the server to mute them, otherwise that’s all you’d see in the chat. Yaito invited a lot of them, she said you gave her permission.”

Netto frowned. “I did, but I didn’t think it would be this many.”

“Over a hundred, if I remember correctly.”

“Over a hundred?!” Rockman exclaimed. “There’s been a hundred of Yaito’s maids on the server and we haven’t heard from them?”

“They have their own private chat so they don’t disturb you guys, like the net navis do.”

Netto’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute, then that means we haven’t been playing with just the five of us… we’ve been playing with over a hundred people!”

Rockman turned to his father. “Dad, can I send a message to the maid’s chatroom from here?”

“Of course, why?”

“I think we can find out who killed Prokofiev.” --

Everyone was gathered in the foyer of Yaito’s Underminer mansion. The lights were low as a storm poured outside. In the center, under the crystal chandelier, was a maid wearing the default skin of Underminer. She knelt on the floor as whispers drowned out the sound of distant death underneath the mansion floors. Yaito approached the edge of the landing, where she looked out over her peers and the accused. It had taken no more than five minutes for the maids to direct Rockman in her direction and now it was up to Yaito to decide her fate.

“Proceed.” Yaito announced.

Rockman stepped forward. “Why did you do it?”

The avatar looked up, tethered to mouse and keyboard. “Am… am I really standing trial in front of a bunch of ten year olds?” A woman’s voice came through the mic.

“Answer the question!” Netto demanded.

“You know this is a game, right?”

Rockman looked at Yaito, who began to raise her staff when the maid quickly spoke up once more.

“Wait, wait, wait. Okay, I did it, but it was an accident, alright?”

“What happened?” Meiru asked.

The maid sighed. “Okay, look, the boss wanted marble, so she had us go get marble. I got a bit lost and poked my head out from underground to try and figure out where I was. It’s a whole maze down there!”

Rockman couldn’t deny that.

“That’s when I saw that house and the fountain,” she continued. “It was made of marble, so I thought maybe you might have some laying around in storage I could just… sneak out and bring to the boss.”

“Is that why marble has been so hard to find lately?” Dekao asked.

“You could have just asked.” Meiru said.

The avatar shook her head. “It was three in the morning, no one was going to know— or was supposed to. But then I accidentally stepped on that dog. It attacked me and I couldn’t get it to stop.”

“Yeah, wolves won’t stop until the monster or player is dead,” Dekao said. “I never use them because they get stuck on everything.”

“Well, I tried to get it away from me, and then it… fell.”

“Fell?” Rockman asked.

“Through the hole I made. And it died. I felt bad, but I read that you can tame more with bones so I just left whatever I had in my inventory. I was still on the clock, so I didn’t have time to dawdle.”

“So it was all an accident.” Meiru muttered.

The room fell silent, and a single dying cry of a bendyman echoed beneath the floor.

Yaito hit her staff against the railing of the landing. “Alright, it is time for punishment! By the decree of My Princess-li-ness and law of AyatoLand, your punishment will be…!”

She held her staff in the air, letting the suspense hang before Dekao shouted out for her to hurry up so he could use the bathroom. She slammed the tip of her staff onto the floor, and the lights in the room all went out except for the chandelier.

“She will serve Meiru as her personal maid in Underminer till we are done playing this game!”

“So my punishment is I get paid to keep playing more of this game?” the maid asked unenthusiastically.

“My word is final!” Yaito shouted. “Now get out, I have a winter gala to prepare for!” --

That night, Rockman helped Netto turn off his computer as he pulled back the sheets and crawled into bed. He only had five minutes left on his counter, but his materialization program would be nearly fully recharge by the time Netto finished school tomorrow.

“What a day, huh? I never would have thought Yaito’s maid did it!”

“Yeah, I had no idea we were playing with so many people.” Rockman admitted.

“And we had to run all over the server and town just to find out who did it! All because they had a secret chat! We could have saved so much time if we knew and just asked them.”

Rockman walked over and tucked Netto in. Their weekend had been busy, running around and interviewing everyone before leaving to the real world to solve the mystery there. Before they knew it, their weekend was over and it was already time to return to school.

Rockman broke the silence. “Wow, Enzan was right. We really did waste our time.”

Netto threw a stuffed animal and it bounced harmlessly off Rockman. He laughed and raised his hands.

“You’re right, you’re right. The time we spent with our friends is what mattered the most.”

“Now that Dad mentioned it, the chat thing is the same for navis, right?” Netto asked. “I never see any of them in the chat, even you.”

“I guess it’s to keep the illusion that you’re in an empty unknown world with your friends.”

“But we’re friends. I wouldn’t want to be trapped in an empty unknown world without you.”

“Me neither.”

Netto pulled his blankets closer. “You promise to show me The Hall when we’re done?”

“I promise.” Rockman assured him.

“Goodnight, Saito.”

“Goodnight, Netto.”

#mmbn #ruthpost

dunedragon