It had started in the small village of Delna, though this wouldn't be discovered until long after the initial commotion had died down. That investigation would also reveal other corruption, but that wasn't as important. Most people believed the first occurrence was in the walled oasis city of Merimheim. While this was wrong, one could hardly blame them for Delna was so small that most [Cartographers] didn't bother to include it on their maps.
Delna also only contained two of the smaller artifacts. In fact, if it weren't for subsequent events, Delna's involvement might never have come to light.
Merimheim, however, was more indicative of how the mysterious [Artificer] would later act. Before, the city had been known for the white wood it exported. It wasn't a lot of wood, nor was it of particularly high quality. But, in a desert, wood was a valuable commodity.
Other similar towns had to import it from coastal regions at a significant markup.
Now?
Now Merimheim would be known as the 'City of Video Games'. Or 'The Great Arcade'. For that was what the artifacts claimed to be: 'Arcade Games'.
They had sprung up from the ground one day amidst the marshalling of forces for the war with the King of Destruction. This had thrown the city into a panic. While they were far from Chandrar's great Zeikhal Desert, news of Takhatres and his raiders had reached even there. The populous was on edge.
It hadn't helped that Flos Reimarch had announced to the world that he was awake and was at war with the Empire of Sands just a week earlier.
While the initial reaction to the Arcade Games was one of panic, the [Guards] could not drive off every curious individual. There were simply too many Arcade Games, and too few [Guards]. The lights and sounds they produced were like nothing anyone native to Chandrar had ever seen. They were... enticing in a way that was difficult to describe.
The images they showed ranged from simple geometric shapes to figures that looked 'real'. Or at least real enough that people had to look closely to realize they too were made out of countless small squares.
Each Arcade Game had a different name: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Frogger, Donkey Kong... All the way to Street Fighter - which was not nearly as revolutionary as its sequel would prove to be when it was release later. The Arcade only had the oldest of games... for now. The images got better and better with each one.
It had been a teenager who'd touched the first Arcade Game. He'd drawn closer and closer, and noticed a button that had the word 'Start' written above it. It might've been some insidious magic that drew him in, or a desire to claim the artifact for his own, or just curiosity. Whichever it was, he pressed the button and Chandrar was forever changed.
He quickly learned that the odd sticks could control one of the figures made out of squares that was displayed on the item. He'd watched the figures before. The images the Arcade Games displayed showed how the 'game' was to be played. He moved the oddly smooth stick that felt nothing like how it looked, and his figure moved.
He died quickly - in the game, not in real life.
However, in his death he realized something, and pressed the start button again.
He died again and again, but it took longer and longer each time. There was a number that told him how well he was doing. We would never get to the highest score that 'PIX' had claimed, but he still got to input three letters to immortalize his accomplishment. He only stopped because other children had demanded a turn. Some people got along. Some played each other. Some formed lines and waited their turn. Others got into fights. [Guards] interceded regardless, but as stated before, there were too many Arcade Games and too few [Guards].
[Soldiers] and adventurers were called in. Merimheim had been preparing for war, so they had the raw troops on hand. Of course, adventurers were acknowledged as irregular troops for a reason and they began to play the games they were guarding.
This sparked outrage between them, the populous, and the [Guards].
All this time, orders had run up the chain of command. The [Baron] watched and fretted what had befallen his city. He quickly gave the order for the [Mages] of the guild to do something. Magic was cast... and the targeted Arcade Games dissolved into slag.
This sparked more outrage - especially since it had been a simple information gathering [Spell]. They had no way of knowing the insides were in a quantum flux and any observation of their state made it so that everything must be a ruined pile of junk.
Brave [Soldiers] were ordered to dismantle one of the artifacts... it too, dissolved into slag.
[Messages] flew through the air. Arguments happened. Eventually, the warning on the Arcade Games was brought to the [Baron]: 'These artifacts are fragile. Any magic or attempts to move them will shatter the spell-work and leave nothing behind.'
It had been written prominently on the back of the magical devices, but events were happening too quickly.
The [Baron] ordered all interaction with the artifacts to cease. The Emperor would not be pleased if this sudden bounty was destroyed.
They would also not be pleased if a threat was allowed to exist inside of their empire.
Then again... how much of a threat could such fragile devices be?
The seconds stretched as the news was relayed to the highest power in the land. No one knew what the result would be. While the Emperor took care of their people... they were also very mercurial at times. The reason for this was not well known, but it also was not a great secret either: the Emperor of the Sands had multiple heads.
They could detach them like other Stringfolk could with their limbs. A new head, a new body, but they were still without doubt the [Emperor]! Having multiple viewpoints was a good thing, but for events like this, or the re-emergence of the King of Destruction, not every head agreed.
Some would want to take in this bounty. Some would discard it out of hand. Some would wonder what the point of the Arcade Games was.
As it happened, that was the sort of head the Emperor was wearing today. She, for this head was female, decided that a single city, while precious, wasn't vital. It would be a waste to destroy such strange and marvelous artifacts. It would also be a waste to let them just sit there.
Still, she wondered what the goal of whomever made them was. It was clearly ancient magic from someone of great power. She feared that it might be a plot of Flos to gather information or to sew discord.
Then again, there had been no sign of Amerys since her king had awoken. Besides, the Calm Flower of the Battlefield was anything but. She was as vicious and sudden as the lightning she wielded. She might be an Archmage of Wistram, but her knowledge of Artifact Construction was lacking.
No, whatever plot this was, it did not come from the Archmage of Lightning.
Rhir? Could it be another dark plague from that cursed continent?
That seemed unlikely. Threats from Rhir were more widespread... and certainly nothing like this.
Dragons then? Could the oldest foes of Chandrar have returned? Was this their ploy to retake their kingdom somehow? They would certainly have the hordes of magical artifacts to do such a thing, for Dragons were greedy to a fault. If any still lived, they would have the capacity for this.
Then again, that failed to answer the question of 'why'?
No. The Emperor decided. This was not the time to be hasty. The artifacts were undoubtedly a trap, but would they be sprung by destroying them and spreading unrest? Or by allowing them to exist and launching an attack later?
Merimheim was precious, as were all her cities and people, but it was only a single place in her vast empire. She decreed that the artifacts would not be touched, but that Merimheim would not partake in the war and that [Investigators] of all sorts would convene there to examine the Arcade Games - but indirectly so as to avoid damaging any more of them.
In truth, the Arcade Games WERE spying on the people around them, but not in a way she expected nor for any reason she feared.
The technology that had created them had been so far beyond what they needed, that the video game portion of them could've been classified as an afterthought - if one didn't know the nature of their constructor. So, while the controls, screen, and programming were all important - the most intricate aspect of the Arcade Games was their scanning capabilities.
Everyone that came close. Everyone that didn't. Everyone in the entire city was scanned.
Constantly.
The Arcade Games did not have any system-enhanced scanners. They couldn't identify a person's [Class]. What they could do was watch and listen. They created profiles for each and every person. Their name, face, if they spoke about a Golden Gun... All of it was recorded.
What did the Arcade Games do with this information? Most of the time, the answer was 'Nothing'. It had a list of names that had been expanded on to include other common Earth names. Or, at least as many 'common' names as their creator could come up with. (Which, admittedly, wasn't very many.)
Information on people with those names, or with parts of those names, or with similar sounding names was broadcast by a signal that was nearly impossible to detect and even harder to decrypt.
Thus, the Emperor of Sands may have erred in not destroying them outright.
Or, she might've laid the groundwork for gaining an ally.
Or, she might've avoided making an enemy.
Only time would tell.
Then... the next Arcade sprung from the ground. It was smaller and in a different city to the south. The details were less important as another and another came into being over the following weeks. The situations played out in a similar fashion, and the Emperor noticed a pattern.
Or rather, she noted that the Arcade cities were in a roughly curved line.
People were mobilized. Her troops went to the affected cities, and to the cities ahead of the line, and to any towns and villages in between.
What she found there was even more marvelous and potentially insidious.
The Arcade Games were giant monoliths. Each one towered over the general populous. It wasn't just their height, for there were numerous individuals who yet stood taller, but they were also wide and thick. It was appropriate for such a seemingly potent artifact to require so much space.
However, the smaller towns possessed 'games' of equal, if not greater complexity at a fraction of the size. They had been given to the children - either as a sick ploy of a demented mind... or as a gesture of benevolence.
Similar to the Arcade Games, their hand held versions broke if exposed to magic or force. Worse, as presents given to children, removing them by force was... difficult - at least for her current head. In fact, they seemed so brittle that every single one that was taken away and transported to a more secure location ceased working.
It didn't matter the level of the [Drivers] or what [Skills] they used, they all broke. The Emperor considered it might be a distance related phenomenon, but there was no clear link between how far the games had traveled and when they had broken.
They at least had obtained a description of the culprit. He was an older human, with a long, grey beard. He also wore grey robes, and a grey, pointy hat with a wide brim. The only weapon he carried was a staff, and he hadn't just been giving out potentially cursed artifacts.
No. Gandalf the Grey was a [Wizard], and had saved townsfolk from wild animals, driven off goblins, summoned water to refill a well, treated the sick, helped build houses, and had killed a group of [Bandits]. If the uneducated were to be believed, he had access to magic [Spells] that were far beyond the scope of any modern [Mage] was capable of. Water magic was rare and valuable in the desert, while healing magic was just as unheard of as the creations he left in his wake.
He was clearly a figure of enormous power, but the Empire of Sands had no record of him. He could have come from another continent. Wistram? Rhir? Izril? Terandria? Balerous? Drath? Some small island of his own making?
However, given his age and strange actions, the most reasonable theory was that he'd locked himself away in the ancient past, and had only recently re-emerged into present day Chandrar. As outlandish as such an idea was, it seemed like the only possible explanation.
Her troops had yet to find him, and it seemed that he was adept at avoiding them. He continued to leave a trail of artifacts, even as his path curved to the south-east.
Then... he started leaving items in the village that were the things that Empires were founded with: magical artifacts... that made more artifacts!
Admittedly, all the artifacts that were created were games - with no seeming purpose aside from entertainment. That didn't diminish their appeal. For while their use would be negligible in a war - like the Empire of Sands found itself in - as a mercantile opportunity?
The Emperor listened to her [Merchant] and [Spy] heads complain and say that they should be worn now. She disagreed. A more general approach was necessary. Just look at the trouble their violent, young, warleader head had just recently gotten them into.
The greater artifacts came with instructions written on their side: "Deposit 244 kilograms of sand to obtain a prize! Only one per customer!"
Artifacts for sand?! Gandalf was clearly both powerful and insane, a dangerous combination. Who knew how long he'd been sequestered away from the world?
The Emperor's armies took possession of the greater artifacts. They dared not risk them breaking by moving them, so they stationed themselves in the various small villages. Yet, more and more of them sprung up. It was as if Gandalf had given up all pretext of anything else. He grew even more elusive, with both Arcades and Dispensers appearing within her cities that were actively on lookout.
All without anyone noticing him.
As for the Dispensers themselves? They worked exactly as the instructions stated they would. Sand. Plain, regular sand. The very thing that Chandrar had far, far too much of. That was all that was required to get a 'console'.
It was also impossible for any person to get a second one, no matter how much sand they seemingly shoveled in. In addition, the consoles it created only worked for the person that had deposited the sand!
The [Merchant] head cried in rage before pivoting to some convoluted plan involving people paying for the right to visit.
The Emperor was more concerned with the functionality of the consoles. They came with a single 'game', but one could grant their game to other consoles. Even more intriguing, there were games that could have multiple people play at the same time - and at quite a large distance.
Could it be used as an alternative to scrying and message spells? That was something to consider.
Then, Gandalf's path came to the edge of her Empire. He was far to the south-east. Away from where the King of Destruction's raiding was happening. The Empire of Sands had sent their best. Gandalf the Grey could not be allowed to leave!
Yet... Arcades and Distributors appeared in the area with no hint as to their origin. If the [Wizard] continued his path, he would find nothing but the Great Zeikhal Desert. Armies could not cross it, but the Emperor sent her elites to the far countries of Killale and Deimos. With luck, they would encounter Gandalf in the border towns there.
They failed.