Solarversia: The Year Long Game Read Online Free Page A

Mandelbrot!”
    Slowly, something rose through the hole in the floor: an amorphous blob perched upon a circular dais. As it passed into the room, the blob began to bubble and shake. Suddenly an enormous fist protruded from the jelly. It unfurled slowly, and Arkwal hopped into its palm and sat himself down. He flicked his wrist to extend his telescope and rested it between the thumb and index finger of the giant hand.
    The telescope faced the north wall of the Magisterial Chamber, the facade of which was already in the final stages of repair, being reclad in marble by a team of diligent arkwinis. Satisfied that the work was being done to the highest standard, Arkwal nodded his approval.
    Meanwhile the amorphous gloop continued its metamorphosis. Other body shapes appeared, each one made of the same gooey substance, which looked mauve from one angle, purple from the next. The centre of the circle bubbled with the greatest intensity and rose fast, at first resembling a volcano and then, as it reached towards the ceiling of the room, a totem pole.
    Hundreds of mouths burst into view up and down the length of the pole, each formed in its own peculiar way. One contained dozens of teeth pointed at vulgar angles and several tongues, which took it in turns to lick one another. Another contained only a tongue, as long as a hockey stick, that whipped in and out of surrounding mouths, as if it was scared of being bitten if it stayed in place too long.
    A small but perfectly formed set of lips near the top of the pole started to sing. It was an anthem of sorts, sung in the sweetest soprano, and its chant began to spread down the pole like a Mexican wave, with mouth after mouth joining in harmony. The lower the mouth, the deeper its voice. As the mouths sang and their anthem reached its crescendo, the newly repaired north wall of the chamber began to crumble, revealing behind it a grid of millions of tiny squares, bathed in a warm violet light.
    “I’m happy to announce that the Player’s Grid is in place,” said Arkwal, now standing in the middle of the giant fist, his arms extended above his head in a triumphant gesture. “The Year-Long Game can begin. Emperor Mandelbrot has asked me to wish each of you the very best of luck and would like to remind you that There Can Be Only One!”
     

Chapter Four
    “Take me to my square,” Nova said. She flew across the Magisterial Chamber, leaving Arkwal and the Emperor behind, and zoomed in to her square in the bottom left of the grid. Like most players, she’d fretted about her player number for months before making her final choice. The number determined the position of the square within the grid — which quadrant it was in, and how central it was.
    To make things interesting in the lead-up to the start of The Game, Spiralwerks had gamified the entire number choosing process. Released in batches, most had been available for free and were distributed on a first come, first served basis. Other ‘cooler’ numbers — the low ones, round ones, primes and so on — were sold, auctioned or offered as prizes in a multitude of promotional games.
    As a result, securing a good number had become something of a sporting pastime. Although numbers had no direct bearing on how well the player would perform in Solarversia, the unspoken agreement was that the lower numbers — those closest to the centre — were the coolest. At least, that’s where most A-list celebrities had ended up.
    The dilemma people faced was whether to lock in a number early, and risk missing out on a better one, or to wait, and risk having to choose an even higher one when all the central ones went to other people anyway.
    As well as wanting to be fairly central, Nova and Sushi had wanted to be next to one another within the grid. They’d spent ages debating the merits of various numbers, and arguing about who was going to be odd, and who was going to be even. In the end they settled for squares in the bottom left quadrant: