1        Soul Bound 1.3      Making a Splash 1.3.3    An Unrequited Love 1.3.3.9  Uncivilised actions

Panic.

Or, at least, there was panic among the people facing the suddenly alert and threatening soldiers. The soldiers were calm. So was Hachiko, and not only because he was safely above it all - he was used to this too. A veteran.

People new to broadcasting usually tried to show everything, flicking around as though afraid to miss a single dramatic moment, which resulted in them having to spend most of their speaking time in general commentary, sharing their own thoughts on what the 'main players' were doing and why, in order to prevent the audience getting disoriented. Hachiko had done the same himself at first.

Nowadays his approach was different. He picked a single individual that he thought his friends could understand, and then used his words to help them empathise with how things much appear to this viewpoint character, to highlight the details the character's feelings would be affected by. Let the story tell itself, and leave each viewer free to make their own minds up about what, if anything, the larger event signified.

He smoothly panned from Pazzi and the spear wielding guards smoothly moving their mount into a formation, across the crowd of fleeing customers, and wailing merchants trying to grab as many items as they could staggered under, and slowly zoomed in upon a single man and his cart, zoomed so closely that every twitch of facial expression could be clearly seen.

Petrovich.

The old sailor looked more resigned than angry or scared. In absence of any bag or other container, he'd taken off his apron and was placing dolls upon it one by one, carefully arranging them so limbs wouldn't get bent nor paint get rubbed off when he finally rolled the apron into a bundle.

He wasn't wasting time, his every movement precise and efficient, but there were a lot of dolls, and he clearly didn't intend to be intimidated into abandoning any of them. Hachiko panned back a little, showing that nearly everyone else had already left, while quietly explaining how to Petrovich it wasn't an issue or greed or even pride - it was just that the dolls and the joy of the children receiving them were the only things that provided a meaning for the old man's life.

He was nearly finished when the first soldiers reached his stall. They were chatting, laughing. One of them was eating an apple he'd grabbed, while several necklaces could be seen hanging halfway out of the belt-pouch of another. Petrovich addressed them politely, to give himself a little more time as he set about rolling up the apron, its strings spread wide on either side so they'd be available for tying it closed.

Petrovich: "Afternoon lads, appreciate your patience. I'm loyal to Lord Pazi, a great man he is, aye? And I'll be out of your way in a moment, only hung back a little because I wanted to ask you about the bounty. How much is it, exactly?"

He kept his eyes on them and their weapons but his hands didn't stop and his voice remained strong and calm - the voice of a bosun with years of experience at dealing with fighting men even when bored, riled or drunk.

The one with the necklaces sounded bored and prodded at Petrovich with the tip of his spear, forcing him to step away from the bundle he had been trying to tie, or order to avoid being injured.

Guard: "Loyal to your profits you mean, merchant? Must be something valuable in there, or you wouldn't care this much about it. Tough, Pazi said leave and you didn't, so it's ours now. Leave it and go."

He made the word "merchant" sound like an insult, and even before he reached the end of his sentence he tried surprising Petrovich with a sudden spear thrust - a real one this time: harder, faster, and intended to wound.

Petrovich dodged it with ease, grabbing the bundle with one arm and drawing the knife he used to whittling with the other. He backed away towards the same alley Hachiko had used, not taking his eyes off the soldiers in front of him, and even using the leather-wrapped bundle like a shield when one of the others threw an apple core at his head.

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Hachiko really thought Petrovich would make it, and knew his viewers were experiencing his hopes and fears as intensely as he felt them. What a story! It was moments like this, full of immediacy and personal connection, that gave his channel Hachiko and Friends not just its popularity, but its identity.

He lived for it, and his friends lived through him. And now they were shocked along with him as his zoomed in vision captured every detail of a crossbow bolt passing into the bosun's skull from behind and then erupting through the left eye socket in an eruption of blood and bone fragments that left him literally faceless - all that remained above the grey droopy moustache was a conical pit of gore that couldn't even be identified as human.

He held the image for five long seconds before slowly panning out to show the soldier with the necklace pouch using his spear to cut open the bundle and looking disgusted at only finding wooden dolls. Further out, to show the other soldiers mocking the first one, and their waving acknowledgement to the foot soldiers with shields and crossbows who'd moved into position while the merchants had been paying attention to Lord Pazi's long winded proclamation. Further out still, to reveal the larger scale organised patterns of movement, as groups moved outwards in alternative waves to hold and secure, followed by quartermasters taking inventory as teams of hired Carter Guild members arrived and were deployed.

Hachiko used his words, not to describe what all these people were doing or why they were doing it. He used them to bring home how little Petrovich's death meant to Pazi's soldiers, how little it disrupted their patterns or was even noticed. And he finished his segment by slowly panning back in upon the abandoned body while delivering what was almost a eulogy for the toymaker, conveying with emotions that didn't need words "You were noticed. We care. You did matter."

Upon the dead faceless abandoned body, whose arms were splayed wide like the apron strings had been. And, next to it, upon a much smaller body equally abandoned - the last wooden doll Petrovich had ever worked on, its face only half-carved yet still individual and recognisable. A doll never now to be given to a child, because one iron-shod hoof from some careless cavalry mount had crushed it so badly that not even the greediest of Pazi's guards thought looting it was worth the time it would take to stoop down and seize it; yet a doll that, by some chance or twist of plot expert system, had ended up next lying by the tips of Petrovich's right hand, wooden arms splayed in a pose that mirrored that of its maker.

Hachiko felt something well up inside him and, rather than cheapening it with an attempt to put it into words, inadequate limiting words, he imagined himself as an amphora of experiences, like the ones Kafana had gifted him - a swimming pool sized amphora of clear crystal he could dive into, submerge, gulp down, breathe. Become.

Fade to black; and cut!

He thought he'd succeeded, and felt a quiet pride in having performed his chosen role with skill, despite a nagging voice at the back of his mind which whispered "You little coward, Hachiko. If you were really his friend, why were you not standing there next to him? You focused so much on being a journalist, you forgot about Petrovich's safety and didn't even think about watching his back so you could shout a warning if you saw a threat."

So when Ueno informed him the following day that Fundim had licensed the segment for use in an advertising campaign he was surprised, but pleased. The image Fundim tried to present to the world was that of an underdog firm that valued creativity and staying on the cutting edge, bravely scrapping against the grey greedy dinosaurs holding consumers back from achieving their true potential.

It was only after the segment aired globally, under the title, "Toy or Toymaker?", that he learned Fundim were actually the world's largest manufacturer of gaming gear that used the latest generation of tiara technology, and quite how much money they were pumping into persuading everyone to upgrade as soon as possible. But it wasn't the money that changed his life. Whether it was due to chance, hard earned skill or the effect of the unique experience he'd had when Kafana had entered his mind, he'd produced a sense recording was different to any previously known, and over the next two weeks not only would he become a household name even among those with no interested in games - he would also become the eyes through which many first experienced the potential of the new tiaras and, incidentally, a poster-boy for Soul Bound's new Covob expansion and how people saw the gamers who played it

For the first time, the Big Players would truly notice Hachiko. Not big players like Nevermere's Artri or Cruel Vengeance's Ulfheonar but rather "Big Players" as in "people with serious arlife power and a willingness to risk using it to increase their odds of winning". The sort whose games were played not inside computers but over control of the companies that wrote computer games and over questions like "Who will control how this new technology gets used"

For the first time, Hachiko was seen not as just a member of a category but as an individual piece on the board worth tactical consideration, like a pawn that might be moved, taken or even promoted.

Sometimes it is safer to remain faceless.

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