Verza Zal stood with her arms crossed, watching through the one-way mirror of the interrogation room. Inside, her second-in-command, Ret Breind, was losing his patience.
Jakor, the lanky Zynar merchant, was strapped into a heavy metal chair. He looked terrible; his skin bruised, one of his three-jointed arms swollen, his clothes torn. But his mouth was still moving.
"I told you!" Jakor wheezed, spitting a glob of blue blood onto the floor. "I am just an employee! I move crates! I don't know who he meets with!"
"Keep fucking lying," Ret snarled, leaning into Jakor's face, "and I can assure you, your three-jointed limb will turn into six. Now tell me, where is that Neman hiding?"
Jakor slumped back, looking utterly disheveled. Internally, however, he was thanking every god he knew. They had been careless, yes, but Dorian's private network, the one piggybacking on the Accord's own signal, was holding up. The BSO had logs of calls, but they couldn't decrypt the content. 'We owe that kid big time,' Jakor thought.
Ret stood up abruptly, wiping spittle from his face. "Fine. Enjoy being zapped."
He turned and stormed out of the room. As the heavy door slammed shut, a mechanism on the chair hummed. ZZZKT.
Jakor arched his back, a guttural groan escaping his throat. It was a precise voltage, enough to cause excruciating pain, but pulsed just short of causing permanent nerve damage or unconsciousness. It was designed to keep him awake and in agony.
Ret joined Verza in the observation booth.
"Any word about the Interrogator?" Verza asked, her eyes never leaving the convulsing Zynar.
"She should be here," Ret muttered, checking his chrono. "Let me check once more."
Before he could tap his comms, the sound of rhythmic footsteps and the heavy clank-roll of machinery echoed from the corridor. The door to the observation booth slid open.
Verza and Ret turned.
Standing there was a woman of the Qerrian race. Her skin was a dull Veridian green, with faint, sickly yellow markings running down from the corners of her mouth like stained tears. She wore the standard BSO officer's uniform, but with a personal modification: a heavy leather mask covered her entire forehead and eyes, completely blinding her. Above the mask, her sensory tendrils twitched and writhed in the air, tasting the fear in the room.
"Eevlas Zin," she introduced herself, her voice a dry, rasping whisper. "I am a Level 7 Interrogator." She tilted her head slightly towards the back of the room. "And you, the trooper in the back. Stop looking at me like I am a specimen. I can see your pulse through your helmet."
The Legion trooper standing guard behind Verza and Ret immediately straightened up, his heart rate spiking.
Verza raised an eyebrow. "I am Lieutenant Verza Zal. Nice to meet you. But if I am not wrong, I requested a Level 5 Interrogator from Intelligence."
"I just had a breakthrough," Eevlas said, a thin, yellow smile stretching her lips. "The BSO wanted me to test my findings in the field. If it is okay, I want to test my machine on your... guest."
Verza looked at the Qerrian, then at the machine her troopers had wheeled in. She nodded to Ret.
Ret stepped forward. "His name is Jakor. A Zynar. A conspirator for one of the leading figures in the Nexus revolutionary cell. We want to extract his knowledge to cement our sparse information."
"I will start now, then," Eevlas said.
She gestured with a single, sharp finger for the troopers wheeling her machine to follow her. They moved into the interrogation room.
The door opened. Jakor, panting from the latest shock, lifted his heavy head. He saw the green-skinned woman with the leather mask.
"Put it beside him, please," Eevlas ordered softly.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of pristine black gloves, slowly pulling them over her Veridian fingers, a sharp contrast to her grey BSO uniform.
Behind the glass, Ret frowned. "She is sharp. How did she know the trooper was looking at her?"
Verza watched Eevlas's tendrils moving in the air, sensing the invisible currents of the room. "Qerrians have always been gifted," she murmured, a hint of unease in her voice. "It seems she is one of those monsters among them."
…
Eevlas Zin stood before the battered prisoner, her head cocked slightly to the side as her tendrils tasted the air. "Obey and Prosper, Mr. Jakor."
Jakor spat a glob of blood onto her pristine boots. He looked up, his eyes defiant despite the swelling. "Fuck... and off, bitch."
Eevlas didn't recoil. She simply chuckled, a dry, rustling sound like dead leaves. She turned and walked toward her machine. It resembled a high-end audio mixing board, but the cables were thick, shielded conduits meant for bio-neural interfacing.
She traced her gloved finger along the edge of the console. "The universe is ever-expanding, Mr. Jakor. And so, the Accord must expand with it. I am always fascinated by these Outer Rim planets. Most of them do not even know the power the universe has laid dormant, just waiting for us to harness it."
She began to circle him slowly, walking behind the chair.
"Anyway," she continued, her voice a whisper near his ear, "I am always curious about these many races. Nemans, Zynars, Gunnose, Kalamor... a fascinating menagerie. But there is one new interest of mine."
She traced a finger along Jakor's shoulder, feeling the tension in his muscles.
"Do you perhaps know of an Outer Rim planet called Dagma?"
Jakor breathed heavily. He didn't know the name. He just remained limplessly unresponsive.
Eevlas walked back to the front, standing directly before him. "There are fascinating facts about those sharp-fingered blackies. There is a tradition among these primitives to treat their children and young with the utmost care. Not so different from civilized races, of course; it is nature's call to protect the young. But these Dagmani... they will do anything to make sure their young never cry."
She leaned against the machine, adjusting a dial. "If a child cries, they try to calm them. If that does not work, they sequester them in secluded places, deep in the jungles. We assumed it was superstition. So, a few years ago, the Accord decided their society was too backward to be of any help. We decided to subjugate them. A 'cleanse'."
Eevlas paused, her hidden eyes fixed on Jakor.
"But recently, something strange happened. The Legion reports... the recordings of the cleanse... were being reviewed by Intelligence. Imagine our surprise when 19 out of 20 reviewers turned into mental patients."
Jakor stared at her, a cold dread settling in his stomach.
"Like, literally," Eevlas said, waving a hand. "They were normal officers before. Several days later? They had severe symptoms of PTSD. They became frantic. Afraid of the light. Suicidal."
She stepped forward, placing a gloved finger under Jakor's chin, propping his heavy head up to face her leather mask.
"We found that Dagmani children have a gift around their larynx. A biological anomaly. They can transfer their feeling, pure, unfiltered emotion, to the one who hears their cries. Hunger. Fear. Pain. Despair."
She let go of his chin and picked up a heavy, insulated helmet connected to the machine by thick black tubes.
"So, I isolated the audio," she said, her voice clinical. "Specifically, the screams of the children as the Legion cleanse their village. My findings suggest this should put you in the same state of irreversible PTSD in about five to six hours."
Jakor struggled against the restraints, his eyes wide with horror. "You... you monster!"
"Prosperity requires sacrifice," Eevlas whispered.
She jammed the helmet onto his head. It covered his ears and eyes completely, plunging him into darkness.
She flipped a switch on the console. The machine hummed with a low, menacing thrum. She hovered her hand over a large red button.
"Enjoy the symphony."
She pushed it.
ZZZNNGGG.
It wasn't just a sound. It was a high-frequency spike that bypassed the eardrums and drilled directly into the nervous system. Jakor's body went rigid. Every muscle, every nerve ending, every drop of blood in his veins tensed.
He didn't just hear the screams. He felt them. He felt the heat of the fire. He felt the crushing weight of a collapsing hut. He felt the sharp, piercing agony of a photon bolt. He felt the terror of a thousand dying children flooding his mind, washing away his own thoughts, replacing his consciousness with their final moments.
Eevlas watched the monitors, where Jakor's brainwaves were spiking erratically. "Essentially," she narrated to the empty room, "he feels those pains and feelings of their last moments. Over. And over."
Behind the one-way mirror, the air grew heavy.
Ret Breind stepped back from the glass, his face pale. He felt a genuine, primal fear. This wasn't interrogation; this was something darker.
Verza Zal, however, stood perfectly still. She watched the Qerrian work, watched the Zynar convulse in screaming agony. She didn't feel fear. She felt a chill, yes, but beneath it... she felt opportunity.
This Qerrian was a monster. But monsters were useful. If she could control this... if she could build a connection with Eevlas Zin...
"She will be a great help for me," Verza whispered to herself, a small, cold smile touching her lips.
…
On the galactic net, Roric's stream flared to life. The addition of community mod support had injected a massive dose of adrenaline into Stardew Valley's lifespan, and the community was buzzing.
"You guys," Roric whispered conspiratorially into the mic, leaning close to the camera. "I have top secret news on Stardew Valley."
The chat instantly went into a riot of hype emotes and question marks.
: NEW GAME??
: STARDROP DLC?
"They added mod support," Roric said, leaning back with a grin.
The chat exploded with boos.
: BOOO! we knew that yesterday!
: clickbait roric >:(
: you got my hopes up man
"Hahahaha!" Roric laughed, soaking it in. "I mean, it is a big community update! Remember months ago? You guys didn't even know how to 100% the game and you all came crawling to me for guides." He rubbed his eyes in a mock-crying gesture. "And now you guys abandon me. Cruel."
: aww poor roric
: dont be deceived guys hes farming sympathy like he farm his star fruit
"Anyway," Roric said, dropping the act. "As you know, the condition to unlock the mod tools is to 100% the game. I know you guys are too lazy or too noob to do it yourselves. So, let me, Roric the Great, show you the promised land."
The chat began to banter with him immediately.
: remind us what your farm name is roric?
"It's 'Supreme Chat'." Roric scoffed.
: remind us also what is your 'favorite thing' in the game?
"the chat," Roric deadpanned. The chat spammed laughing emotes.
Seeing the viewer count stabilize at a high number, Roric decided it was time. "Alright, let's do this." He booted up the game.
: how does the modding even work? is it external?
"We'll see," Roric said. The familiar Roundtable logo splashed across the screen, followed by the title card. It looked normal. But then, Roric spotted it. On the far left of the screen, there was a faint, 50% transparent arrow.
He moved his cursor over it and clicked.
The screen slid to the left. It was a new title card, but it was barren. No clouds, no birds. Just a single interactive object in the center: A pixelated sword, stuck deep into a pixelated stone.
Roric tried to click the sword. It nudged slightly, a heavy thud sound playing.
: spam click it!
He spammed it. Thud. Thud. Thud. The sword wiggled more violently, dust particles flying off the stone.
Suddenly, a donation alert popped up on stream. RoundTableStudios donated 1000 cred: PULL IT.
"YOOO!" Roric shouted, jumping in his chair. "Round Table Studios is watching! The devs are here!"
The chat went berserk.
: NOTICE ME!!
: PULL IT RORIC!
Roric grabbed his mouse with both hands. He clicked and held, dragging the cursor up.
With a pixelated SHING!, the sword ripped free from the stone. But it didn't just free itself, it tore the screen. The title card ripped open like paper, revealing a stylized, shifting background of raw, pixelated code and wireframe junimos moving around.
Two options appeared: [COMPREHENSIVE] (Code-Based) and [SIMPLE] (Visual-Based).
"I'm no coder," Roric said, clicking [SIMPLE].
The interface that opened was beautiful. It was intuitive, dragging and dropping assets, painting terrain like a canvas. And best of all, a small, animated AI Junimo floated in the corner, offering pathing suggestions and correcting logic errors in real-time.
"Whoaa," Roric breathed. "Guys, you know what this means?" He looked at the camera with a manic grin. "IT'S POLLING TIME!"
The chat immediately began throwing out prompts, from "Cyberpunk Farm" to "Dating Sim with the Wizard."
[Sela - On Set]
Dorian chuckled, watching the stream on his heliopad. He was dressed in a sharp, modern suit, accessorized with silver rings, a heavy bracelet, and a simple chain necklace, the "Percival" look.
"They really are enthusiastic," he muttered, scrolling through the chat's wild ideas.
He paused, a thought crossing his mind. 'Should I add more restrictions?' It was the internet, after all. The AI Junimos had a built-in 18+ content detection filter, making any explicit mods ineligible for sharing on the official forum. 'But people will make them anyway,' he thought. 'Should I make a separate, age-gated section? Or just let the chaos reign? The net is weird.'
"Dorian," Ratik's voice called out, cutting through his thoughts. "We are ready."
Dorian stood up, sliding his heliopad into his jacket pocket. He reached for his polished mask and clicked it into place.
Briane Taleini walked up from behind Ratik, looking stunning in a flowing, avant-garde gown. She wrapped her arm comfortably around Dorian's suited arm.
"Ready for your first shoot, Composer?" she teased.
Dorian's voice modulated through the mask. "It's just a music video, Briane. Plus, I don't exactly have to worry about my facial expressions with this thing on. Hehe."
"Fair point," she laughed. "Let's go make some MV."
…
The indoor set was a marvel of modern filmmaking, a massive soundstage where the walls, floor, and ceiling were composed of high-definition, active LED screens. It was "indoor mimicking practical," creating a seamless, immersive environment without the need for physical sets.
Director Tenga Praji, a visionary known for his surreal visual style, walked toward them, his long scarf trailing behind him. "Ahh, so, Percival. Come."
Dorian looked around at the screens. "Whoa. I thought we would do it in greenscreen."
Praji stopped, looking confused. "Greenscreen? That is like... ancient technique. Are you studying film history, Composer?"
"Never mind," Dorian mumbled quickly. "Where should I stand?"
"Well, this is not the set yet," Praji said, waving a hand dismissively. "We are just testing the lighting." He snapped his fingers twice. His assistant, a scurrying compadre, handed him a control pad. Praji tapped a few icons.
The screens around them shifted instantly. The studio vanished, replaced by an endless, grey void filled with swirling mist. In the center of the set, a holographic projection of a large, rectangular glass chamber materialized, shimmering with a cold, digital light.
"I would like this to be a one-take shoot," Praji announced, pacing around the holographic glass. "The cams will take every angle we need simultaneously. I want you to feel the music. Just move the way the song wants you to be."
"Wait," Dorian said, feeling a sudden spike of anxiety. "I thought I just had to stand around and look mysterious."
"Come on, Composer," Briane said, grabbing his arm. Her dark chocolate skin stood out beautifully against the pale grey of his suit. "It will be fun." She pulled him towards the glass chamber.
They passed through the holographic walls as if they were mist. Inside, the air felt cooler, isolated. The film crew outside began to move into position, their equipment silent and hovering.
While they waited for the final check, Briane noticed Dorian's suit jacket was slightly crooked at the shoulder. She reached out, her hands gentle and practiced, and straightened the lapel.
"Thank you again, Composer," she said softly, her eyes meeting his masked ones.
"For what?"
"For the song," she said. "And for coming for the MV. I know you hate cameras."
"Hey," Dorian said, shrugging. "It's my song too. I am the duet partner, remember?"
Briane chuckled, smoothing the fabric one last time. "There. It is all straight."
Dorian nodded and walked to his initial spot, leaning against the far wall of the glass box. Briane moved to the center and sat on the floor, her expression shifting instantly from playful to soft, calm, and profoundly sad.
Behind the director's chair, Kio and Ratik stood side-by-side, watching their artists.
"Great choice on the gradient black and white dress for Briane," Ratik noted, her voice low. "It compliments her white hair and lashes perfectly, while adding more depth to her skin tone."
"Great job on the accessories for the Composer," Kio replied, nodding at the monitors. "He is clearly a silver type of guy. Though..." she squinted at the high-res feed, "...I do see tan lines around his upper arms the other day. Is he still gardening?"
Ratik sighed, a long-suffering sound. "Well, it is his way of relaxing. And to be fair, it bears great and nutritious food. He has gotten much more built than the thin young man I first met."
"Alright, everyone!" Praji's voice boomed across the set.
He began to issue rapid-fire instructions, ensuring every drone camera operator was synced for the complex, continuous shot. The atmosphere on set tightened, focusing into a single point of artistic intent.
"Alright," Praji said, holding up a hand. "Rolling... and... ACTION."
The guide track started, the haunting, melancholic piano notes of "Lovely" filling the void.
⋘ 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒂.. .⋙
🎮:
- Stardwey Valley: Completed.
- Hades: 19%██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
🎬: -
♬:
- Your Name – Elton John (ch.9)
- A Lovely Night – La La Land (ch.20)
- Merry Go Round of Life – Howl's Moving Castle (ch.25)
- Small Fragile Hearts – Victor Lundberg (ch. 27)
- Skyfall – Adele (ch. 29)
- No Time To Die – Billie Eilish (ch. 30)
- Yesterday – The Beatles (ch. 32)
Qerrian: The Qerrians are a humanoid species with Avg. Natural Lifespan of 110 – 130 Standard Years. Qerrian culture values silence and stillness. Because their senses are constantly bombarded by input, they often build homes in magnetically quiet zones or underground.
Appearance: Qerrian skin tones range across a vibrant spectrum of earthy and chemical hues, primarily Ochres (Yellows), Veridians (Greens), and Crimsons (Reds). The skin often has a subtle sheen, slightly more resistant to UV radiation than standard human skin. Instead of hair, Qerrians possess a collection of fleshy, muscular tendrils growing from their scalp. The tendrils (collectively known as "The Vane") are not aesthetic; they are a highly advanced biological sensor array. These vary wildly between individuals. Some have thick, dreadlock-like chords; others have hundreds of thin, filament-like strands; some even have flat, ribbon-like appendages.
*A/N*
~Read Advance Chapter and Support me on [email protected]/SmilinKujo~
~🧣KujoW
*A/N*