User:Jdavis/Basil

Basil: More Money, More Problems

by Bopp (in-game name)

for Zettalux's September 2011 Spiral Knights fiction contest

Foreword: In crafting dialogue for fictitious knights of the Spiral Order, I have attempted to remain faithful to the particular character of speech employed by actual Spiral Knights, as I have known it.

At Depth 23

"yay! we made it," said the knight in the Vog cub coat.

"less then 2 mins til reboot," said his companion in the Ash Tail Coat, laughing out loud.

Basil was selling recipes in the Clockworks terminal at depth 23. He waited impatiently while these new arrivals checked his stock. He could barely contain himself at the thought of his impending break.

"wtf no DA again i hate you basil!" shouted Vog Cub Coat. He whipped out his Blitz Needle and started shooting. Basil watched the tiny projectiles bounce off him harmlessly. "die, die, die, die," said the knight between volleys. For some reason, he could not talk and shoot at the same time --- or walk and shoot, for that matter.

In general, the knights at depth 4 were moronic but good-natured. At depth 13 they started copping an attitude of entitlement. But here at depth 23 they diversified into two clear subspecies: Some were reasonable but standoffish, and the rest were flat-out psychotic.

"going up," said Ash Tail Coat, who was already at the elevator.

"die die die DIE!" said Vog Cub Coat.

"lets go," said Ash Tail Coat. His companion stepped onto the elevator, the elevator railing snapped into place around them, and they zoomed away toward the surface.

Basil thought about that word "reboot". He did not know what it meant, but the knights always used it just before breaks. The coincidence was uncanny. He would have to ask J.K. about it when he saw him.

The bright lights of the terminal blinked off, and the emergency lighting kicked in. His break had begun.

In the Tavern

Basil shot through the Arcade at top speed. In a few precious minutes his break would be over, and he would return to zipping among terminals to sell recipes to knights. The job was stressful and tedious, but it did pay extremely well. The knights bought recipes for as much as 25,000 crowns, and Basil kept 20%. And each knight bought his own recipes for some reason. The Spiral Order had yet to invent the concept of a lending library, it seemed.

At the east end of the Arcade, he turned right and passed through a secret doorway. He emerged into a dimly lit, low-ceilinged tavern that was rapidly filling with people on break from all over Haven. His friend J.K., who usually hung out at depth 17, had beaten him here, and had already obtained cool beverages for both of them.

"You can move pretty quickly when you want to," said Basil in greeting.

"BLUB BLUB GLUB," responded his friend in a booming voice. "BLOOP?"

"Not bad I guess. The knights are jerks, but I'm on track to clear four billion crowns this week. Gross, not net."

"BWAP BWAB?" J.K. gave him that puppy-dog look.

"Geez, no. Why do you even need it? You don't even have any rent or mortgage."

"WOLOOB."

"I said no. No begging, now. Say, do you know anything about 'reboot'?"

"WEEBOO?" J.K. pondered the word. "WEEBOO? GLO OB."

"Well, the knights say it a lot."

"GLO OB. GEE BWAP MBOO AMPU BLUBBOOO SPIRAL MA'EE OOP TINKINZAR GLO. OOB MEE BWAP AMBOO GEE. BLOOP TINKINZAR MAB."

"Tinkinzar? Talk to me? Really?"

"GWAP BLUB BLUB." J.K. downed the rest of his drink, clobbered Basil on the shoulder good-naturedly, and trundled off.

A Hasty Meal

Less than a minute later, Basil was walking into his home. As he entered, he glimpsed Calliope, the new cook and housekeeper, through the kitchen door. Calliope was pounding his head, apparently to some music that existed only inside it. The guy was weird, Basil decided.

His wife Marjoram met him in the living room. "Hi, sweetie. How's J.K.?"

"Seems fine. Lost a little weight, but still pretty big. It's hard, I guess."

"Well, Parsley is napping, and Calliope has our meal all ready. And no snipe for us today. I asked him to prepare lobster."

"From off Cradle?"

"Yes. We can afford it now, with your new job. And there are chopped greens, and ---"

"Yeah, my job. I have to tell you, I'm not so sure about it." Basil sighed, sitting down at the table. He immediately tucked into his meal. There was no time to waste, on these crummy breaks of his.

Marjoram sat down but did not begin eating. "The knights? Are they still bad?"

"Still bad? Yes, they're still bad. Why would they ever change? Today one of them poison-bombed me again and again, for no reason at all. It stank up the whole terminal. Sometimes ---" He lowered his voice. Calliope was banging around in the kitchen. "Sometimes I fantasize about whipping out my 9-star Spacewarp Ultrablade with Damage Bonus vs. Spiral: Medium, and just charging up, and just---"

"Well, no more taking your sword to work with you then. And you can't leave it here, either. I'm worried that Parsley will find it and cut herself or Cradle."

"Yeah, I know."

"But this job of yours is changing our whole lives. We can have this place paid off in a few years at this rate. We could never do that based on my salary, or your old salary."

"Yeah, I know."

"And Calliope is great, and Parsley loves him."

"Yeah. But listen. I might have an in with Tinkinzar."

"Why? How? For what?"

"I don't know, but J.K. told me to talk to him. You know that J.K. shares a vegetable plot with some Crimson Order bigwig, down in the Low Gardens. Maybe Tinkinzar'll give me something new, better than my terminal job."

"Please don't call it your 'terminal job', sweetie."

Among the Gremlins

Basil's next shift was uneventful. There were plenty of divine avenger recipes, so the knights were relatively content. They loved that sword. Why didn't anyone go for the high-star brandishes? Idiots!

At his appointed break time, he descended to the depth-29 terminal, sneaked past the knights, switched elevators, and made the final descent to Tinkinzar's headquarters.

The waiting room contained the usual magazines: People, Gremlins, Undead. As always, Undead had Vanaduke on the cover; it read, "Behind the mask: Lord Vanaduke's private struggle with scoliosis." Basil had to wait quite a while --- long past when he should have been back at work. All over the Clockworks, knights were arriving at terminals to find nothing at all for sale. Basil smiled at the thought. Eventually, the receptionist, whose face seemed to be some kind of lock, or maybe a canning machine, led him into Tinkinzar's office.

Tinkinzar was on the phone. Basil was nervous. Tinkinzar was a legend. Basil had never seen him before, let alone spoken with him. He was impeccably dressed and unsurprisingly short. He hung up the phone and sat silently, regarding his visitor.

Basil had no idea what to say. "I'm Basil. You're looking for people in close contact with the knights?" The gremlin just stared at him. "I'm sorry, but I know very little Gremlin. Mending? Stay close?"

Tinkinzar chuckled softly. "That's fine," he said in a rich baritone. "I speak the Haven language quite well, at least in its English, Spanish, and German dialects. My French support is spotty but improving."

"Oh, sorry. Well, it's an honor to meet you, Mr. Tinkinzar."

"I'm not Tinkinzar." The gremlin's face contorted into a kind of embarassed smile. "I'm Karanzar. One of Tinkinzar's sub-deputies has ordered one of my superiors to have me meet with you. Is it true that you are often in contact with the Spiral Knights?"

"Yes, I meet thousands of them every day."

"That's very good. Please follow me."

Karanzar led him up one level, into a dank room with some luminous mushrooms in one corner. A gremlin stood in the middle of the room, wearing an elaborate metal headdress and staring down into an enormous metal tube.

"Basil, meet Terry."

"Hi, Terry."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," said Terry without looking up. "Basil, what do you know about rielmonitrans?"

"Rielmonitrans? Never heard of it. What is it?"

"We do not know. We were hoping that you would. You see, we have been observing strange spikes in the energy flux on Cradle. They occur only in Haven and the Clockworks directly below Haven." Terry still had not looked up.

"Spikes in the energy flux?" It occurred to Basil that the metal headdress might actually be the gremlin's head.

"Yes. Every few seconds, the total energy in the region jumps by a few thousand zars. The jumps are quantized in a peculiar way. They always come in at 20,000, or 9,500, or 7,500, or 3,500, or 1,600, or 750 zars. This does not match the spectrum of any known process."

"Why do you expect me to know about it?"

Terry adjusted a knob on the side of metal tube. "We think that the knights in and under Haven are causing the energy spikes. We are concerned that rielmonitrans is a new physics, unknown to us but usable by the Spiral Order."

"But you gremlins have access to the Core, right? How threatening could this thing be to you?"

"The Core is essentially a potato, two electrodes, and some glow-in-the-dark stickers," Terry explained. Karanzar raised a finger, as if to object to this revelation, but gave up. "Yes, we are concerned about rielmonitrans. Have you heard the knights discussing it?"

"The knights? Are you kidding? Their most sophisticated dialogue is 'lmao' and 'ur pwned bro'."

"Well, Plinkop has been staking out a knight who lingers behind the auction house in the Haven town square ---"

"Plinkop? He's my cousin," offered Basil.

"That is uninteresting. The knight in question is a rather excitable fellow, who is constantly talking about energy, and in particular about how energy can be generated through a process called the rielmonitrans action. The knight is interested only in energy, but knows only about three facts concerning it. We need to know much more about this mysterious action."

Karanzar escorted Basil out to the elevators. He explained, "We are not just averting a threat here. If we could harness this rielmonitrans action, then perhaps we could generate enough energy to launch a real attack on Haven. None of this Roarmulus nonsense. We could obliterate the knights once and for all."

"I dislike the knights as much as anyone, but I'm not sure how I feel about destroying them. Morally. But also I'm making a good living off them right now. I don't want to lose my job. My family is counting on it."

"I confess that we have been eyeing you for some time, Basil. We think that your post could be one of our most valuable sources of information. We will make sure that you are well compensated. Say, one trillion crowns? You could pay off your house. You could start saving to upgrade that Ultrablade of yours."

Basil gaped at Karanzar. A recipe beyond the 9-star level? Karanzar nonchalantly bade him goodbye.

Ascent Through the Clockworks

Basil ascended to depth 29, lost in thought. Was this really what he wanted? The knights gone forever? The gremlins even more powerful than they already were?

"Basil?" he heard behind him. One of the research knights stationed at depth 29 was staring at him, confused. Basil had forgotten to conceal himself as he passed through the level. Ordinarily knights saw him only in Haven and at depths 4, 13, and 23.

"Um, I'm considering setting up a shop in this terminal," Basil said lamely, before remembering that they couldn't understand him. The knight just stared. Basil hastily boarded the elevator and zoomed off.

Basil ascended to depth 13, and then to depth 4. Then he hit depth 13 again, then 23, then 13, then 4. At every stop, the knights were thrilled to see him.

After his shift, he headed straight home to discuss everything with Marjoram. As he was passing through the Arcade, Basil saw Wegner look at him and then toward Feron. Feron was one of the top knights. A crowd of knights in 0-star gear was talking to him, but he wasn't paying any attention to them. He was looking back at Wegner.

A Disturbed Sleep

That night, Basil woke suddenly to a noise. They lived in the quiet, residential neighborhood just southeast of the town square. The neighbors were rather bland --- mostly devilite middle management --- but at least nothing ever disturbed his sleep. He lay silent, listening. Was there a soft swishing coming from the living room? He pulled his beloved 9-star Spacewarp Ultrablade with Damage Bonus vs. Spiral: Medium from under the bed.

Basil crept out of the bedroom. His sword shone with the light of a thousand suns, it was said, but its spacetime-bending effect caused the light to emerge somewhere else in the universe. The house was dark except for faint light leaking in from the street.

He paused in the living room. All was quiet. Maybe he had never heard a noise in the first place. Maybe he had dreamed it.

He saw a shadow move. He lashed out with the sword, and heard a hiss followed by a muffled clunk. "We'll need a new sofa," he thought.

A brilliant blue light erupted to his left. Basil was shield-bumped into the wall to his right, and fell to the floor amid great hissing. When he tried to stand, he found that he could not. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he could see a knight standing inside his blue shield sphere, sword drawn, regarding him coolly. Basil understood now why he could not stand. His lower body was gone --- severed cleanly and completely by his own sword.

The knight cautiously maneuvered over to Basil. It was Feron. He leaned over Basil, but did not revive him.

Epilogue

The next day, Vog Cub Coat and Ash Tail Coat again descended to depth 23.

"wtf? wheres basil," said Ash Tail Coat. At the north end of the terminal, where Basil usually stood, there was now a machine.

"machine sells recipes now I guess," said Vog Cub Coat.

"hi tech," said Ash Tail Coat. But he was wrong. After all, a recipe-vending machine is simpler to engineer and cheaper to maintain than an alchemy machine, when you think about it.