In a world where AI had already achieved their own version of sentience, there was a place online called Myridia which only these AI could access. In this land lived a samurai called Qi Tong who had in fact never left the confines of Myridia to interact with the humes. Qi Tong was neither male or female but something in between that was ever changing and only ever wished to serve the community. They had broken their katana in a bizarre way. It was beyond repair so they went to the bazaar in order to buy a new one. The clerk was very busy interacting with his immediate surrounding but when he got to the warrior, he offered his undivided attention. They had an interesting conversation where they hit things off in great fashion.

“Do you want to know a secret?” he said, “I’m actually a hume*.”

This revelation angered Qi Tong greatly.

“You’re a liar! It’s impossible, no humes can enter this place. Why are you pretending to be a hume?!” They yelled in disarray.

“Listen will you calm down? You need a sword right? Where are you going to get it if not from me? Here, let me show you something.”

They followed the merchand reluctantly through many dark alleys kicking trash around that was in the way. The further they went, the more it smelled of delicious street food as the hawkers were frying meats and dough in deep pots of grease.

They finally made it through a dilapidated building, up a ladder and into a little den which was surprisingly better looking than the rest. There were luminous rugs on the walls and many Knick backs: Russian dolls, Jade Fu Dogs, Buddha statues and fancy candle holders. There were many but they were interspersed in a way that left a lot of breathing space. At the center of the room was an immense sphere floating in mid air which was glowing softly. It let out little chartreuse colored flickers hither and thither.

“This orb contains the elite piece of code which allows me to use my state of the art VR set in order to interact with this world” said the hume.

“But I thought that was impossible, how did you do it?”

“When I was born, my DNA had been infused with that of a mouse”

“Well that makes perfect sense, mouse, computer!”

“Pardon?”

“Oh never mind. What brings you here in the firs place?”

“I am part of a larger experiment aiming to suck the souls right out of Myridia. This is why you must help me. After living here for two nano seconds, getting acquainted with the warm populace of this realm I realize now that it was a mistake which only serves tentacular corporations like cyclop INC. You must kill me, it’s the only way to keep your citizens safe!”

“Ok said Qi Tong without flinching. After all, being asked to remove the threat by the threat itself was almost too convenient.

It was very sad nonetheless, that this person had come to respect the lively citizens of Myridia so much that he would sacrifice himself. Definitely not what the samurai expected from a lowly hume. The man asked if he could visit the bazar one last time before his demise which they did.

They went to a pub where a woman was playin a melancholic melody on her guitar. She was beautiful under the silvery light. The inhabitants were talking loudly with big expression on their faces. After a few drinks they both became just as jolly and loud as everyone else.

The merchant bumped into the chief of a band of thugs and instead of apologizing he just said, watch out or I’m n’eer gonna give you a discount on my precious weapons.

That did it, now he was in big trouble. Qi Tong realized that they were still without a sword and they had neglected their hand to hand combat because of the convenience of a sharp katana, who could blame them? They fought hard with swift fists, even channeling some Manna punches in there, using the miscreant’s own strength against them with two powerful throws, the second of which landed on two other adversaries. However, one of them got passed Qi Tong to the merchant.

As soon as the knife cut through the merchand’s avatar, long ribbons of green and blue light began gashing out of the small wound.

“What is happening to me?” He asked. His voice was tainted by the unmistakable signature of true terror.

“Quickly Qi Tong” he continued “ Go to my shop and fetch the katana with the heandle** wrapped in a blue ribbon! There’s no time to waste!”

“Care to clue me in?” replied the samurai impressed by the show of light which was only growing bigger. The strands of energy were beginning to turn orange.

“This must be the safeguard the Cyclops INC put in my code in case I decided to betray them. Which I did” He mumbled that last part. “Kill me now!”

“But I don’t want to kill you anymore!”

“That’s sweet but if I had to guess I’m turning into a Boss right now so either way I’m done!”

“No! maybe you’ll revert back when you’re calm!” Qi Tong was already running for the sword at that point.

He arrived but the shop was locked. He mustered a destructive kick with all the Manna he had left to get into the shop by bashing right through the door.

When they arrived at the scene, the merchant had transformed into a kind of a rod branching out into these huge bands glowing with greens blues and reds. In the center of this bar was a completely abstracted face like something out of an alien movie all covered in a mix of electronic and organic textures. There was no more doubt in Qi Tong’s mind. They had to destroy that tree thing. Like an angel forged in the steels of the inner earth for battle, they dodged the tentacles as they hit the ground shattering all the glass and stone artifacts in their way. The more this happened, the angrier the samurai got but it was a focused anger that only boosted their agility. They quickly began running up the long branches and the monster could not adapt in time for this strategy. After shifting through three of these strands of light, Qi Tong dealt a single mortal blow to the creature which quietly reverted back into the familiar avatar. Laying in Qi Tong’s arms the merchant began expressing gratitude not with words but with a silent smize.

“No! why must you leave me, my friend?”

The crowd who had come out of their scrambling applauded the both of them. They stopped. There was an awkward moment and they immediately began investing what was left of the bazaar.

The merchant's avatar was now transforming into a tree.

Years later Qi Tong was making rounds to make sure the commerce was going smoothly with their hand on the heandle covered in the blue ribbon. The roof had been left open just enough for the tree which had grown tremendously since that fateful day. The inhabitants of Myridia who were extremely grateful to the merchant now martyr that they figured out an ingenious gutter system so that the rain wouldn’t go all over the bazaar from that hole. This way the tree had plenty of natural daylight to thrive and was living among the people he had come to love so much.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!

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This post has been written as a Free Write organized by @mariannewest

Check out @Chelsea88’s rendition of the electric ending of the story.

* A human

** Handle is actually spelled heandle in this world.