Chapter time.
I'm contemplating changing the update schedules of my two somewhat regularly updated stories, with it becoming a Friday story and the other one a Wednesday one. I'm writing them in such a way, I usually have this one finished by Thursday, and the other one by Tuesday, right now, anyway. I simply update them like that because these were the weekdays I posted their first chapters on.
Please, tell me what you would think about such change.
A tired smile adored Weiss's face as she patiently sat on the uncomfortable chair, doing her absolute hardest to last through the social gathering her father had hosted without getting bored to death.
The atmosphere was dry, people were fake, and she was barely paying any attention to all the tiresome introductions she was meant to go through.
It might have been more endurable than her usual lessons, or family dinners, but it still wasn't anything enjoyable.
At the very least, she could keep herself busy by remembering all the different, and wonderful, games, she had played with her two friends in the last couple of months.
She bit back a sigh.
How much she wished she could go back to play those video games with them, or play them alone if they weren't online, instead of being forced to spend her eleventh birthday here.
Unfortunately, it wasn't possible.
No matter how unnecessary she was for this whole gathering to proceed—and, despite it technically being her birthday party, she was unnecessary—it was sadly expected of her to attend this stupid assembly.
It could have been more bearable if she had something to do, or people to talk to, but the whole mansion was dry, full of strangers, and anyone who wanted to talk to her did it because they desired to gain connections with her family's Dust Company.
Why did so many people bother with trying to talk to her about the Schnee Dust Company, anyway?
The whole company was overseen by her father, Winter was the one who would most likely inherit it in the future, and she was far too young to actually influence either of them.
There was a good chance she wouldn't have been able to properly affect them if she tried to, regardless.
All of her knowledge about influencing others was either purely theoretical one she gained from her multiple lessons, or incompatible with the real world as it came from her forays into video games.
She very much doubted that knowledge on how to defeat a casual Grimm player as the Last Kingdom in Sci-War would help her in convincing her father to support some random tech company.
If anything, those types of opportunists, who thought she would be a gateway to success for them, should attempt that on their own.
They should experience how difficult her father could be, on their own.
She took a bite of some expensive food prepared solely for her birthday, to mask her displeasure.
Of course, if she didn't want to get scolded by her father right after the social gathering ended, there was absolutely no way she could reveal any of her hidden displeasure to the others.
It was a party made specifically for her, after all.
Ugh, moments like these really made her jealous of her friends', Knight and Chammy's, family situations.
Despite not really knowing that much about each other's personal lives, she did come to know that both of them had much more modest, and close, families than she had. Hearing them talk about it—metaphorically, of course, they've never actually moved past sending written messages to one another—truly felt like listening to stories from another world, for her.
To this day, she couldn't begin to imagine how Knight's parents managed with taking care of eight children, while loving all of them fully equally, at the same time.
It had to be miracle.
Her own parents couldn't even properly care for one of them, and it was clear to see that both Whitley and her were very much an afterthought to Winter, as well.
Some barely noticeable tears entered her eyes as an unpleasant memory hit her.
If they weren't an afterthought, her own mother wouldn't have mistaken her for her five years older sister when she had come to her for help with her abundant free time, back then.
There probably wouldn't have been any reason for her to actually come to Willow for help because of such shallow issue, in the first place, if her mother cared.
She let out a shaky breath, quietly to not gather any attention on her.
No, it was a good thing her mother didn't help her back then. If she did, then she would have never come across the incredible invention which were video games, and she would have never met her friends, either.
In the end, she came out of it for the better.
"Those annoying, corner cutting, lying contractors!" A sudden, and very angry sounding, voice of her father, and a loud slam, caused to jump a little in her chair as come from right beside her.
"H-Has something happened?" She asked with a shaky tone as she turned around to see her father leaning on the table, with a Scroll in his hand.
Talking to her father, while that man was angry, was never a pleasant ordeal. No matter whether you were a random employee working for the man, or his very family, it was always a nightmare.
"Has something happened? Has something happened!?" Jacques was fuming as he turned towards her. "How the hell have you not heard what those bastard contractors did already!?"
She opened her mouth, wanting to tell her father how she was just an eleven-year-old and that she was too young to get any news about their family company, but she stopped herself from saying anything. Arguing with Jacques was already difficult when the man was calm, she didn't want to imagine how difficult it was going to be for her when he was furious.
Thankfully, it didn't look like she was the object of his anger, and it was more than enough for her to stop wanting to learn more about the object of her father's anger.
Sadly, it didn't mean her father wasn't willing to vent his anger on her, nonetheless.
"I will tell you what happened!" Jacques grumbled. "Those liars we contracted to make sure our mines were stable, and safe, didn't do their job! Now, not only have we lost one of our more profitable mines, but we also will have to go through several tiring lawsuits, as well as pay reparations to all the families of those stupid animals we sent to work there!"
With an awkward movement, she shifted a little bit away from her emotional father.
There was nothing she could to calm him down, and even if there was something she could do, she wasn't sure if she would be willing to do that, in the first place. While, being angry at a tragedy that happened in one's corporation was certainly reasonable, she felt that her father was focusing on the wrong aspects of this tragedy, at the moment.
The man probably cared for nothing else than the lost money, right now.
"We will lose millions of Lien from our income this year because of that!" Her father shouted, confirming her suspicion, before covering his eyes with a hand to hide his expression. "I really hope most of those annoying animals won't bother with giving us any lawsuits."
Yeah, as long as she wasn't the target of her father's ire, she felt completely justified in not helping her father calm down.
Her help wouldn't have been genuine, anyway.
She raised one of her eyebrows as she saw one of their family mansion servants shakily escort one of their more important looking guests to her father, from the distance.
It looked like her father wasn't going to be able to vent his frustrations to her for much longer.
"Uhm, Mr Schnee, the CEO of Grau Heavy Metal Company wishes to speak with you." Their servant announced in a quivering tone, clearly afraid of her father at the moment.
A subtle smile appeared on her face, as she saw her father force himself to appear calm for the other CEO, before starting to talk to them.
There was no reason for her to listen to them, so she didn't, but she did note that quickly into their conversation her father requested they moved somewhere more private to talk, leaving her alone at the table again.
Knowing her father likely wouldn't be able to see her, she sighed in relief at the defused situation.
She hoped, she wouldn't need to deal with any more of her father's outburst, until the end of this stupid social gathering. They always could end up truly tragically incredibly quickly.
Fortunately, no matter what was going to happen, she knew she would be able to forget about it after the party, by playing some games with her friends again.
(...)
The excitement she felt as her stupid birthday party ended was immeasurable.
After the whole day of doing absolutely nothing interesting, and being forced to act like she was pleased about it, she finally had the chance to do something she actually did enjoy, playing video games with her friends!
The comforting buzzing sound of her computer's cooling system already filled her room, and the screen was turned on, as well.
The only thing left for her to do was launching one of her games, checking if her friends were online, and getting into a match together. Her entire evening had already been planned, just like that!
She clicked on the Sci-War icon on her screen, and got ready to play.
Although, she, together with her friends, had already tried many different games, of multiple genres, on her journey into becoming a real gamer, Sci-War still remained as one of her personal favourites.
There was something so immensely satisfying about crushing her opponents in that classic strategy game.
The fact it was one of the few games she could reliably play with Knight didn't make this game any less appealing to her, either.
As it turned out, Knight's personal computer—which was actually a one of the only two computers shared by the boy's entire family—wasn't actually a high-end machine like hers was, so they often ended up meeting a lot of difficulties when trying to play any of the more modern games together.
On the bright side, they did manage to convince Chammy to play Sci-War with the two of them, though.
After all the dev logos finally went by, she immediately went to check which of her two friends was online at the moment, while deep in her heart strongly hoping that both of them were going to be.
Hey, even if she absolutely hated the fact that she had to endure another one of those stupid social gathering because of it, today was still her birthday!
She wanted to celebrate it, somehow!
To her no small disappointment, however, the moment her friends menu opened, she already could see that Chammy's nickname was greyed out, therefore signifying that they were offline.
A small sigh escaped her.
Well, it wasn't like she told any of her friends about her birthday.
For all they knew, today was simply another day, she wanted to play some video games with both of them. It wasn't like she could have ensured both of them would be online right now, either. There was no way she was going to be angry at either of them for being absent.
At least, Knight appeared to be online, right now.
She quickly clicked on the nickname of her online friend, and send a lobby invite to them.
Due to his large family, Knight's gaming sessions usually ended being quite a bit shorter than hers or Chammy's, so whenever she saw him online, she always made sure to be as quick as possible about sending any game invites.
If it was impossible to tell how little time they had for playing, then it only made sense to start their sessions as early as possible, right?
Arch06Knight1: yo
A smile appeared on her face as she read her friend message, and began writing her own reply.
SnowReh01: Hey, do want to play some custom games, Knight?
One would think that after a good couple months of interacting with Knight and Chammy through chat messages, she would have relaxed a little bit about her grammar online. However, her nature as a Schnee prevented her from not presenting herself in the best way possible, as a result she always tried to make her writing, no matter how insignificant, as dignified as possible.
The way a person wrote their messages was the way they presented themselves online, after all.
Arch06Knight1: yuo bet
She sighed slightly.
It was a pity, neither of her friends shared her opinion about on this.
Arch06Knight1: chammy's not playin wiht us?
She quickly shook her head, maybe it wasn't such a big deal, at all?
Her friends' writing was still readable for her, and at this point she probably wouldn't have recognised either Knight or Chammy if they started to write their every message grammatically correct.
Different people just paid more attention to different things, she supposed.
SnowReh01: She's not online, as far as I'm aware.
Arch06Knight1: pity
She shrugged her shoulder a little.
If Chammy didn't play with them this time, then they were certainly going to play with them later down the line, anyway. It was rare for them to not play together for more than a couple days.
SnowReh01: They will play with us some other time.
Arch06Knight1: aight
SnowReh01: For now let's play some Sci-War.
Archo6Knight1: got it!
With a wide smile on her face, she moved her cursor over the custom games, and started searching for something interesting to play.
They might have played a lot of these games already, but there was still a lot of them to try out. If the speed at which they were created wasn't going to slow down anytime soon, there's a possibility they were never going to be able to test all of them, in their lives.
She hummed in thought.
Although, as she looked at the description of all those games a thought entered her mind that the biggest issue preventing them from trying all of those custom games might not end up being the time they had, but their number of players, instead.
Practically all the games listed on the custom list were designed for four, or eight, players!
All the eight player games were team based games, in which two four people teams were competing against each other, as well!
She was well aware that historically all the huntsmen teams, and most militaries, in the world had been based around the number four, but the fact that those four men teams seeped into the video games too was simply silly!
It was almost as if someone up high decided that everything on Remnant had to be based around this stupid number!
There were four official kingdoms in the world, four different academies in those kingdoms, inside which huntsmen teams of four people were trained, and to top it all off those teams were taught for four years!
Even in her video games, she couldn't escape from this number!
The world was mad!
Arch06Knight1: found somethin intrestin
Arch06Knight1: its somthing like a towr defence but diffrent
Arch06Knight1: yuo build bases in this one
She huffed a little, to relive her stress.
Okay, Knight had found some game-mode for the two of them to play again.
It was good, great even.
The weird scarcity of custom games meant for less than four players wasn't new to them—they did play this game together for a good part of this year, after all—and, because of that, whenever they aimed to play something, they always made sure that every one of them searched for game-modes available to them, at the same time.
Usually, it cut down the time they needed to find something to play by about half.
Which, considering that typically happened in the evenings and were normally cut short, ended up being a necessity for them in order to truly get into any of the more interesting games they could play.
SnowReh01: Thank the Brothers!
It didn't change the fact she disliked this part of their gaming session the most, though.
SnowReh01: Send me a starting link for it on the chat, and I will start immediately.
Thankfully, it was her friends who found the game-modes for them to play the most often, so they all became very experienced at sending links to the lobby host, and having said host start the game.
It might have sounded easy, but it was actually quite tricky to do, especially if one wasn't versed in operating older video games.
Arch06Knight1: here it is
The next message was a copied name of the game, followed by a hyperlink to its position on the custom games list.
She clicked on it, and started the game.
The countdown and the loading screen went by in a blink of an eye, and mere few seconds later both of them were already on the map, with their starting worker units surrounding a giant Dust crystal.
Arch06Knight1: the crystl is our lif
Arch06Knight1: we hav to defn it
With an acknowledging nod of her head, she sent her units to scout the map and collect resources from the nearby mine. She wasn't sure if scouting the map was going to help them much on this map, but she wasn't going to risk playing the game without doing that.
The highly automated beginning of the game, in which she didn't actually do all that much, allowed her to easily write messages to her friend, too.
SnowReh01: Any ideas for the base we're building?
Arch06Knight1: a lot pf walls
She looked at the wide open areas around their crystal, before instantly agreeing with her friend.
Unlike how it was in most of the tower defence game-modes, where enemies were tunnelled into clear, and usually narrow, pathways, this map seemed to be built around open spaces.
It would have been impossible to use the same strategies they had for tower defence games.
As their, or at least hers, economy stabilised, she took a few of her unneeded workers from the mines, and send them to start building defences.
SnowReh01: Let's start by building turrets and barracks.
They were forced to play the Last Kingdom for this map, as it was the only faction in the game which could truly build a cool looking, and practical, bases focused on defence. Not that she really mind that, of course.
Despite having played Sci-War for so much longer than she had after simply finishing the campaigns, the Last Kingdom didn't cease to be her favourite faction in the game.
It was also the faction she had the most experience in.
SnowReh01: We should leave the walls for the end, to not take any of our much-needed space.
Arch06Knight1: ok
Knowing they could trust each other to not fail at making their base, both of them went ahead with properly placing their defences. She ended up being the one responsible for the most outer layers of their base, while Knight focused more on the defensive measures closer to the crystal itself.
They were so in sync that they didn't even need to communicate with each other to do that.
Arch06Knight1: enmy south
Their base building, however, was put to its first test very quickly, as the first enemies began approaching them not five minutes into the game.
She raised her eyebrows a little, in confusion, at the quick enemy attack.
When Knight had described this game's basic premise to her, she expected it to be a rather relaxed experience. An attack on their base so quickly into the game was the last thing she had thought this game-mode was going to do.
SnowReh01: I will build some artillery turrets around there.
SnowReh01: It should be enough to stop them.
Had they had a little bit more developed base, she would have simply sent some basic units that was, to take care of the enemies, but with their base being as bare-bones as it was, the only thing she could hope for were the turrets.
Then again, if their base had been more developed, such a minor attack probably wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
Arch06Knight1: wathc out for nevrmroes
Arch06Knight1: they got som new rnged attck in ths map
A small feeling of excitement went through her as she read Knight's messages.
It was rare for a custom map to give units completely new attacks, or abilities, so whenever they encountered a game-mode which did that, it most often meant that the map was of higher quality than its contemporaries.
At the very least, it always confirmed to them that the creator of that map put more effort into it than most.
SnowReh01: Are you sure about that?
Of course, the map creators could always lie about their map's features, instead.
Arch06Knight1: yeh
Arch06Knight1: som of my scouts died to thm
Arch06Knight1: thats how i knw
She nodded her head.
Well, if her friend managed to see the new feature on their own, then she wasn't going to doubt them. The personal experience was always the greatest proof, after all, and she trusted them to tell the truth.
SnowReh01: Alright.
A ping of a worker unit finishing their objective, brought her attention.
It seemed that the production of their artillery turrets had finished, already.
SnowReh01: Our new artillery should still be more than enough to take care of them.
One of the weird quirks about this game, which she still didn't really understand the reason for, was that all the artillery units, and buildings, were surprisingly well effective against flying enemies. It had no basis in the real world, and none of the other RTS games she had tried to play throughout her short gaming career had the same quirk. On the contrary, all the other games she played accurately depicted artillery as specifically useless against flying foes.
It wasn't like the artillery in Sci-War had increased effectiveness against flying units, either. The flying enemies still could dodge its projectiles the easiest, and even if they were hit, they took less amount of damage from it.
However, the biggest range in the game, combined with the fact that the artillery were an AOE type of weapon, meant that, despite its in-built weaknesses, the artillery turret was still the best turret against groups of flying enemies.
The newly finished turret fired its first few shots, and she saw a couple of red dots disappear from the mini-map, right after.
She smiled in satisfaction at the success of her defences.
Arch06Knight1: nice
SnowReh01: Thank you.
The first group of the enemies was defeated successfully, and she went back to developing their base with her friend.
Although, the very nature of this game-mode meant that they would have to lose it at some point, in her heart she couldn't wait to get through all the unique new Grimm this map was going to throw at them.
If she had the chance to make a pretty looking base along the way, then it was even better.
It was only a pity, Chammy wasn't with them to play this fun custom map. If they had been here, then this day would have ended up being the best birthday she ever had, not that it was a difficult task to accomplish, of course.
She wasn't loosing her hopes yet, though.
Just because her second friend wasn't online when she first came online today, didn't mean they weren't going to be later in the evening!
There was still a chance for all three of them to experience this game-mode together!
(...)
In the end, they didn't manage to experience the base building game-mode together.
They did play for quite some time, but after two full attempts, and almost three hours of non-stop gaming, Knight unfortunately had to call it a night, and log out.
It was a pity, too, as they were doing so well during their second try at the base building. They didn't even make the mistake of relying on the artillery turrets too much without realising the new attacks of flying Grimm could hit them from outside their range, for the second time.
Yeah, her overconfidence in the broken artillery from the original game had cost them the first game quite early on.
She did redeem herself in the second game, though!
If Knight had the time to play the third game with her, they would have certainly lasted to the very end of the map's time-limit!
Whatever that meant for a theoretically endless mode, she wasn't quite sure. It had to be something significant to accomplish, though, if even the mode's creators didn't plan for anyone reaching it.
She stretched her arms a little, and yawned.
Regardless of what it was, or wasn't, she was sure they would be able to find it out on their next gaming session, for now, however, she was getting far too tired, and sleepy, to play anything.
It had been a nearly five hours long gaming session for her, after all.
After Knight had left the game, she still decided to play a couple casual games of Sci-War, anyway. It was her birthday, she had to utilise it to its very limits, if she didn't want to feel like she missed out on it, later in the year.
A soft sigh escaped her.
The only thing she regretted was not coming across Chammy, today.
They were one of her two best friends, and, although they had absolutely no clue that it was her birthday, she still wanted to at least talk to them about something for this occasion.
A sudden ping of an incoming message startled her a little, as she was mentally preparing herself to close the game.
The sleepiness she felt not a moment ago vanished instantly upon noticing the new message.
MineChammy09: hey
It was from Chammy!
MineChammy09: can we talk for a minute?
She grinned excitedly.
SnowReh01: Of course, we can.
SnowReh01: What do you want to chat about?
With how long she had spent on the computer already, she was more than happy to simply write to her friend for a few minutes. She wouldn't have been at her best, in her current state, anyhow.
It was perfect!
MineChammy09: I meant face to face
MineChammy09: or at least voice to voice
MineChammy09: i don't think this game has video chat
Her eyes widened in surprise.
Despite knowing one another for a good part of the year by now—and forming quite a close bond in that time, if she said so herself—all three of them were in a sort of unspoken agreement to not reveal their voices to each other.
None of them ever said why exactly they were unwilling to do that, but none of them tried to pry, anyway.
If Chammy wanted to talk to her on the voice chat, their situation must have really been serious.
SnowReh01: Of course, I will start the voice chat, then.
She gulped.
Although, she had no idea what was plaguing her friend, there was no way she wasn't going to offer her help if needed.
They were friends.
MineChammy09: thank you
With a little bit of shakiness in her arms, she slowly moved her cursor over the small speaker icon, before quickly pressing it twice, to turn their muted chat window into a proper voice chat room.
"H-Hello?" A voice of an uncertain young girl came out of her speaker. "C-Can you hear me, Snow?"
She took a quiet deep breath.
It was the first real interaction they had, she couldn't afford to leave a bad impression.
"Yes, I can hear you loud and clear, Chammy." She said in a soft tone, trying to sound as inviting to her friend as was physically possible for a person like her. "You have a very lovely tone of voice."
"W-Woah." A sound of something shifting entered her ears from the speaker, Chammy must have been quite surprised at her voice. "You sound way younger than I imagined you to be. H-How old are you?"
"I'm eleven." She admitted. "Today was actually my birthday."
"Oh!" Chammy gasped. "I-I'm sorry. If I knew about it earlier, I would have sent you some wishes earlier today! W-We are even the same age right now. I can't believe I didn't do anything for you."
Her mouth turned into a tiny smile, as she chuckled quietly to herself.
"It's okay, it's not a big deal." She said, with genuine happiness. The fact she managed to finally hear her friend's voice for the first time today was worth far more than any written birthday wishes she could have sent her.
Chammy sputtered frantically in response, but after a few moments she calmed down a little.
"You wanted to talk about something, Chammy?" She asked more than stated.
A noise of something shifting a little echoed from her speakers, as Chammy undoubtedly perked up slightly in response to her probing question.
"Y-Yeah, that's right." Chammy's voice took a rather dejected, if not simply sad, tone. "I did want to talk to you about something. I'm sorry it will take so much of your time, but I need someone to talk to."
Her expression turned sympathetic.
"It's alright, Chammy." She said. "I'm here for you."
"T-Thank you." Chammy murmured.
"Don't worry about it." She said with a gentle smile on her face.
"Hm." Chammy let out a sound in response, as she probably nodded her head.
Whatever Chammy was going to talk to her about, she had to listen to it carefully. She might not have ever been taught how to help others through tough times, and she certainly had no experience doing it either, but she couldn't just ignore her friend's plight for help.
No matter what the problem was, she had to be there for Chammy.
The fact her friend was currently staying silent, while trying to gather enough courage to talk about her problem, told her enough to know that her help was probably going to be necessary.
"I-It's a-about my p-parents." Chammy finally choked out with a sniff.
A frown appeared on her face.
Had her friend encountered similar family problems like her?!
"Did they do something bad to you?" She asked urgently, being hurt by your own family was always an incredibly horrific experience for the harmed person.
She knew it from experience.
"W-What?" Chammy let out with a genuine surprise in her voice, before frantically giving an answer to her question. "N-No, they didn't! My parent's would have never harmed me in any way!"
"Good." She sighed in relief. "That's great."
A pained, audible gulp came out of her speakers, as Chammy tried to gather some courage.
"T-They loved me." Chammy said with a loud sob. "They really did."
Her body became tense as she heard the past tense in her friend's words.
"O-Oh." She stuttered, beginning to understand what was going on. "D-Did something bad happened to them recently? Do you want to talk to me about them? I'm willing to lend you an ear."
Chammy sniffed loudly, confirming her questions.
"They were miners working at SDC mines."
She froze.
A memory of her father's rant during her birthday's social gathering echoed in her mind.
"I-I don't know how much you know about that workplace, but it wasn't the best place to work at." Chammy sniffed again. "M-My parents usually didn't complain about it too much, though. They always said that as long as they had enough money to take care of me, and could survive their work day, they were going to be content."
No, it couldn't be happening.
Not to her friend.
"T-The mine they worked in collapsed."
Chammy sniffled once again.
She felt as if she was being crushed.
"T-They died."
And cut!
Chapter's finished, I am staring at it for half an hour already, and the very last line still feels a bit off, to me.
I mean, I'm pretty sure it works well for what it needs to do, but I can't help but feel I could have written something better there.
Eh, I guess it's good enough.
Also, I've gained access to a tool of unimaginable power—one that will change the way I write till the very end of times—quiver in fear as your read my chapters from now on, for I have discovered the em dash!
It's neat.
See ya!