"Asteria was shaping up to be a complete and total trainwreck."
Howard, as he always is, just loves to hear himself talk. Even in tis as somber and dour as present ti, leave it to him to construct a vivid narrative in our head that told of a more simple ti.
The scene was set, the year is soti before the official conception of Chronicles Of Asteria. What year, you may ask? Well… let's just say sowhere between before the eventual heat death of the universe as we know it but also soti after the 21st century. Does that narrow it down enough for you?
Picture this - Cyberware Ga Studios. A small studio, a modest studio, with even more modest people. Their aim, their belief, the creed they almost always dutifully followed since their inception was to always give everything they made and strive for their full 100%.
Let it not be said that they've been led astray from their vision - following such bold claims, as promised, everything from them was given their fair share of that 100% love and commitnt.
The only problem was… in our world so imperfect and flawed, not everything would get its fair due to a 100% success. Sotis the fruits of your labor just end up rotting away.
In Cyberware's case, let's just say they weren't no Hand of Midas, alright. Fa and fortune slipping away from their grasp - release after release, ga after ga… a slippery spiral downwards into the scary murky depths of diocrity.
They have had six gas under their belt at this point, with their latest - a Sci-Fi RPG romp set sowhere in the near future - flopping harder than a beached whale. It was almost as if they were always destined to fail no matter which greener pastures they set their sights onto next but try as they might each flop was always more cataclysmic than the last.
From an up-and-coming team of a hundred and eleven bright-eyed individuals to a asly fifty-two in a span of eight years. Budget cuts and disappointing turnovers had whittled the once promising studio down to its last few cents.
Just enough for one last ga, one last group effort, a go ho or go big push, lest they have to shut their doors for good. But with most of their talent gone, and with morale at an all ti low, how on Earth were they ever going to possibly make due?
Enter Howard Philips.
"Was hired during the Sci-Fi phase. Back then I was hired as a simple debugger. I say that but at the sa ti, I was also given bits of the ga to work on since they were so spread thin. For my work, after the ga's release, I was promoted to the position of assistant technical director after their old one left shortly after."
So far, the little trip down mory lane was a simple enough one to follow. Even Ash, displaying occasionally frowns at buzzwords like 'awful programming' and 'poor marketing' and 'dismal sales', was able to get the gist of what he was trying to say.
Cyberware Ga Studios were in the shitter.
"So upper managent decided to go for one last ditch effort. What that was - nobody knew… everybody was just throwing ideas at the wall trying to find out what would stick, and to make matters worse, we lost our ga director. Resigned two months after kickstarting the new project citing that he found better opportunities elsewhere."
"Him leaving didn't exactly alleviate matters. Now we've no director, no vision… no ga. Production ca to a halt, all we had were a few assets made and so sketches done, but really we were just grasping at the straws at that point."
Didn't realize just how dark the tis were for this now prospering studio. From the surface, you couldn't even tell that they were once on the verge of bankruptcy just a few asly years back, what with all the fancy high-tech equipnt on every floor, and just how sleeked everything looked to the eyes… add the fact that the building itself was rely a side branch to their main studio up north, and yeah… it was hard to imagine them living off of hard beans and spoilt milk for the majority of their ti existing.
It's amazing how just one ga, one idea could turn that all around… but as we would eventually co to know - the idea was never even his in the first place.
"I was never exactly the big creative type," Howard explained. "Not back then, and certainly not even now. But back then with the big creative people all gone, the studio was becoming desperate, they were practically ready to give the position of ga director to the next person that ca walking into the front door. Oh, forgot to ntion… bye-bye technical director too… they gave that position too after she has gone and packed up. So yay to , I guess."
Irene was groaning, scoffing, patience wearing… don't think she was as invested as I was in Howard's tale, walking long paces back and forth in the length of his office.
"All very fascinating, Howard," She muttered un-fascinatedly. "But we're not particularly interested in how Asteria ca to be. We just wanna know why it ca to be. Can you get to that, please?"
Not keen on irking an already irate detective, Howard complied with a timid nod, adjusting glasses that weren't there. He was a nervous wreck.
"We have pitch etings every other day in the office. You know… brainstorms that always amounted up to nothing."
Howard began making minute adjustnts to every off-angled object on his desk. Probably just to give his hands sothing to do apart from simply twitching and quivering in place.
"It was during one of these sessions that it finally ca to . Don't know how, out of nowhere… an email appeared on my laptop… and when I clicked on it, when I read what was in it, I don't know… it just seed like a lifeline from the heavens - it was literally the answer to our problems. Everything we wanted and needed was already in it - a captivating storyline to follow, an expansive magical world to create, intriguing characters to give life to… everything."
Irene halted her back and forth, disinterested eyes inversing to ones that looked at him unblinking. "So that's Asteria?"
Much to our surprise, Howard shook her head glumly. "Asteria… that na… it was only one of the original things I actually ca up with on my own. The email had another na for it."
I tilted my head. "What na is that?"
"Kronocia," Howard replied, lips narrowed. "The sender of the email called this world Kronocia."
Another share of glances between us three - there it was, sohow, soway… Kronocia would co to rear itself into the subject matter, it was only a matter of ti that it did. But the way that it did clearly caught us all by surprise.
As a ga-pitch inscribed an email sent to a random employee from a dying company on the road to ruins.
At least one thing was finally confird here - that the world of Asteria was indeed based on the now no-longer present realm of Kronocia. Their history, their stories, their magic… why they all aligned. Welp, good news was, we were finally getting so answers. Bad news though, those answers ca with a caveat of even more puzzling questions than the ones we first had.
For example, as Irene so eloquently put it, "Who this savior from above then? Who sent the email to you?"
Howard quietly stared for a mont. "Would it surprise you at all if I told you that I don't know myself?"
"Not really," Irene said matter-of-factly. "But it does serve to piss off even more than I already am."
Ga Director-man flailed his arms about again. "Look - I'm sorry, alright? I wasn't exactly in the mood to start sniffing around for anything suspect when I just found the one thing that could potentially save the studio."
"And throughout developnt?" I asked. "Not even the slightest bit curious on just who the hell this golden goose of yours was?"
"Course I was. But it wasn't like they were parading their na around either! There was no credit to the docunt sent, no label to go off on. Just a throwaway account with nothing in it. And I didn't need them for consultation either - if I wanted to implent, I just go back to that email again… see what other interesting thing there was that I skimd, and there we go."
"And where is this email now?" Ash jumped in after a long mont of nothing but silence from her. "If you'd be so kind, let us find for ourselves just what it contains within."
A simple request. So easy to fulfill. Laptop was already sitting on the side of his desk there. But once again, as if truly wanting to rile us up, he shook his head.
"I can't," He said, veering his eyes away from any of ours. "I already… I already got rid of it."
Reviews
All reviews (0)