The Devil In White: An AA Online Novel

Elias Thompkins, the founder of MKC Online, was staring at thumbnails of videos provided to him by his dark horse Amelia Patrick. He had watched the first few, genuinely intrigued that the CEO of Centra had approached him about this one particular streamer. His fascination grew as he had watched them all after the opening of the audience with King Elairdrin. Online game streaming as an industry was fairly understood by the world and large corporations, though it had a rough start in the 21st Century where most streamers put their experiences up and were approached by sponsors. Highly unreliable. Now there were companies that sought these same people and offered them pay and insurance for exclusive rights to show commercials during their simulcast and to delay streaming. Cable companies and other TV stations were all online now, though there were still analog packages offered to people who wanted to relax on the leisure of their furniture while they watched TV, most of those same people simply hooked up a computer to their TV and watched it online. With technology came rapid expansion and narrowing of the field. Why wait until a show premiered on Saturday on a time schedule when you could go online and choose that show any time it was available as soon as it was available? You could watch it as many times as you wanted and still use a TV. Though TV, Elias reminded himself, was so old. Now everyone had screens. Light curtains they hung from whatever surface or fixture they felt like that could plug into an ethernet port. Practically zero weight and holo-cinema resolution had virtually destroyed the flatscreen television market. The companies could load, ship, and transfer fifty times the product because the Light Curtains weighed nothing and could be folded. Next year would see the wireless light curtains hitting the market.

"Boss?" Abhijita pulled him from his thoughts, and he turned to his fiance and co-founder, a dark-haired woman with even blacker eyes who was smiling impishly. She still called him boss.

"I don't know what to do with this." Elias finally admitted. By this, he waved at the screen with the various clips.

"They were incredible though. Pirate sh.i.p.s, singing in front of monsters, a cooking rivalry!" Abhy had become just as entranced. "She didn't edit any of it, probably an amateur. That's better for us though. We can cut out all the in between and do action shots and add music!"

"I don't know how to market it. No one is going to click on the link. They're just going to think Hob-Gob Life is a dumb kids video. Pirates! Pirates are so generic." Elias complained and let out a long breath through his nose before continuing. "She is a nobody. No one is going to follow a link on Amelia's name power."

Abhy nodded grudgingly. "What about that Spider boss?"

"That's a good one. The only real gem for us. I can advertise that as part of the campaign everyone is doing about the Far North expansion. Geez, that was amazing." Elias admitted with feeling, interrupting himself to talk about the battle in the dark with Syrxis. "When he lit the webs. I want music added at that point. Dead silence while they're all being dragged to Syrxis. In fact let's even dampen the ambient, and start a slow and gradual transition to black. Let the audience think that really is the end of that. Then… I want a building tempo. Something rock. Did we have any other streamers in that fight?"

"No. She was the only one. Everyone else was working for someone else or is an unknown." Abhy sighed.

"Damn. We could really have used some cutaway shots." Elias muttered. Abhy just grinned, she could see him working the problem in his head. "Still. Amelia seems… unusual?"

"I don't know. She seemed pretty plain compared to her companion." Abhy said dryly. "Like a normal player."

"No. Too normal. She didn't cast any spells. She sat and watched the whole fight after buffing the party. She could have been a camera." Elias laughed. "We won't have to do any motion editing or flash correction. She was always watching the action and occasionally turned to the back party. We can use almost all of it. Not only that but she has the weirdest way of opening up scripting ideas. At the end of the Syrxis fight she looked at Aidan remember?"

Abhy nodded, already anticipating him. "Invincible."

Abhy and Elias both played the game, and it was fair to say that they might still be having awkward work talks if they had never played AA. They grouped together in the game and worked together, and eventually, Elias had been asked out by Abhy. She had called him full of liquid courage and demanded that he take her out to dinner. So they were both familiar with the game even though their streaming company had started with other strategy games. It had slowly evolved until MKC Online was doing almost exclusively AA. Their reputation was good and their service traffic was high enough they no longer ate out of soup bowls.

"I've never even heard of that. What kind of monster do you have to be yourself to have the game tell you that you're not afraid of a thing like Syrxis." Elias complained.

"I'm more interested in something we can't show the viewers without all the videos." Abhy interjected, and after Elias nodded for her to go on continued, "Amelia can only cast spells from one school. Her party buffs are game-changing. I keep waiting for her to sacrifice flame."

"Then she'd just be a buffer. I don't know many groups that would be fine with that," Elias wondered aloud.

"Are you kidding? If I had someone in the party that could let me use a second release on my most powerful ability and increase my HP and Mana and fighting strength by over 85% they could drink tea in the background or sleep." Abhy's voice quickened when she was excited. "We could be talking about a new class!"

"The buffs don't stack. So she eliminates all the other enchantments that are less powerful than hers. It's a one per party sort of thing, and she already proved that she can cast it on a raid full of people. You really don't need a lot of those running around taking up space." Elias pointed out. "Also, can you name many people who would be comfortable just standing around. Even when she was being dragged she just robotically tried to escape. It was like she was saying 'oh poo, I'm about to be devoured'."

"I didn't feel that at all. I felt like she was despairing. You should have seen her eyes jump up when she heard Aidan!" Abhy grinned.

"We're arguing!" Elias announced, and they grinned at each other. "Perfect video for the net."

"What do you want to do about the other videos you don't think people will explore?" Abhy finally asked.

"Load up a special program on our front home page. Put up a banner of Aidan in lead with all those Residents covering him with shields, holding up his lighted staff and illuminating the spider. You can probably get a good shot fairly easily from the video. Then, we'll call the program 'Book of Amelia' and put all the other smaller videos in links under the main program." Elias said, his hands moving enthusiastically as he outlined the plan. "We need to stay on top of this. I want Philip's team on Amelia from now on. Any footage she sends over I want it immediately. When the smaller videos start getting enough hits we'll branch them. If we're lucky people will-."

"Boss!" Andrea had opened the door and popped her head in. A member of his legal representation team. "Hunter signed." Her lips almost pulled passed her face in a grin.

"WHAT?" Abhy and Elias demanded.

"We asked her for her footage after you said you looked at the Amelia fight. I called her up, she's freelance is what she tells me." Andrea gloated and spread her hands. "Get this. Right. So I'm telling her that we just want the Silf Dungeon footage to complement our video of Amelia under the Brack Kingdom and she stops me. Seriously just tells me to stop like she has better things to do. Then she asks me if I mean the Chronicler Amelia!"

Elias felt dizzy. "What's her rank?"

"Hunter is in the top 5 hall of fame." Andrea singed.

"She signed us?" Abhy sat down, hard. With that sort of rating, sponsors would pay them millions of dollars to have their ads featured. Of course, that was a gross exaggeration but in their industry, this felt like winning the lottery. Not only that but all the footage Amelia had provided with Hunter in it could suddenly be used. Including the Port attack where Amelia had recorded the event and had then shown it in the hall of the Silf.

"She said, and I'm quoting here. I'll sign a contract with MKC Online exclusively if you are with Amelia. She just joined my guild. Then she HUNG UP ON ME." Andrea started laughing. "She didn't even ask about pay!"

"Who the hell is Amelia?" Abhy demanded. "Do you think she could be related to Catherine Waide?"

"Centra CEO's daughter." Elias speculated with a pinched face before shaking his head. They just didn't know.

"Top 5 ranker!" Abhy continued.

"I'll break out the champagne!" Andrea was the pragmatic one.

Elias jumped to his feet. "I want that footage now. Abhy! New program name."

Abhy was on her feet, anticipating Elias, and she had her pad out. "Go."

"Shadow Fall Victory!"