Operation Heathrow

Chapter 12: Freedom at the Gates?

On Friday morning, Karine is once again visited by yet more astral projections. On top of her own characters, she's also visited by Béteulle, whose beacon has been removed, as well as Caroline's characters, but also two more characters of players she never played with. Her bedroom feels a little cramped for this many people around her bed.

"What did I do to be visited by characters of players I never played with?" a confused Karine asks the group of astral projections. "I might have accepted that you're all controlled, or used to be, by players in our world..."

"Your last stream showed why. Caro doesn't stream" Monseigneur explains to her player.

"Let me get this straight. Because of my notoriety as a streamer among the MAA community, you saw fit to think of me as a soundboard for your world's cries for freedom!" Karine lashes out at her character.

"I'm Yasama. My player doesn't stream, and hence has no visibility outside Japan. You know Japan holds next to no weight in the MAA community because it's a PC game without console ports, even with the latest RWF!" Yasama tells her.

Kataparuto's surprise third place in Operation Heathrow made it easy for MAA players to forget about how console-centric the Japanese gaming world is, Karine, triggered by Yasama's statements, keeps to herself.

"I'm Jutudiel. My player contacted you about how she suspected for years that players were controlling real people in our world before that stream!"

"Adèle. If I recall correctly, she claims that only the closure of the game would grant your world freedom. What does freedom mean to you all?" Karine asks the characters.

"You already have a glimpse of my answer. We would carry on our world's affairs according to what's in our best interests, without your world's interests getting in our way" Clavet answers her player, in the presence of other characters.

"Even now, the manufacturer is planning on adding more dungeons to the game, as well as making Hell itself accessible for open-world questing" Karine retorts.

"That's exactly what I mean. Even Hell is not immune to NIMBY. The damned don't seem to be looking at living adventurers killing them for the entertainment of your world as release; rather, they feel like the construction of haunted parks on their land adds to their torment" Clavet explains.

"Even when the ghosts in these haunted parks stay in the park?" Caroline's skirmisher asks. "Is it about noise, blood or some other by-product of the violence taking place in the haunted parks?"

I can already feel like their world's residents will demand the outlawing of haunted parks and that of angelic beacons as a precondition to any peace treaty with ours, if such a peace treaty holds any real value on ours, Karine seems to have a flash of insight.

"You seem to ignore that the atrocities committed by Perseria began with protests due to ghosts using the city's residents as meatshields in Lower Perseria! People clamored for both better regulation of the haunted parks in Perserian territory, as well as bringing me to justice!" Monseigneur deadpans Caroline's skirmisher, who, apparently, didn't follow the world's news.

"Yeah, the Perseria city council used the ghosts in both haunted parks of the city to frighten the population!" Béteulle seems to somehow recollect his most recent experiences in the Perseria dungeons. "They're using the haunted parks for evil!"

"Speaking of haunted parks, the rumor is that Pandemonium authorized the construction of a haunted park at the Gates of Tartarus!" Clavet tells the latest developments in Hell, before her astral projection disappears from Karine's view.

"I beg you: stream! I will arrange for Adèle to go play with you on a stream, and into the First Circle of Hell if possible!" Jutudiel starts crying, in hopes of getting Karine to stream.