Dread settled in Chris's stomach. He sat in his bedroom, the memory of the Mayor's slick press conference playing on a loop in his mind. The "Buckhannon Gateway Initiative" was a Trojan horse, a beautifully packaged scam designed to gut the town and line the Mayor's pockets. He knew it. The faint, corrupt red aura his System had detected on the proposal pamphlet was all the proof he needed.
But proof for him and proof for the rest of the world were two different things. The glossy pamphlet was just marketing, a collection of cheerful artist's renderings and empty, focus-grouped buzzwords. The real proof, the evidence of the scam, had to be in the full, official proposal, the one submitted to the town council. It would be a dense fortress of legalese, and somewhere inside that fortress was the proof he needed.
He knew he couldn't just walk into City Hall and ask for a copy. He was a thirty-year-old recluse with no official standing. They would laugh him out of the building. He needed an inside source. He needed an ally.
He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over his contacts. There was only one person he knew who was civically engaged, socially connected, and who already knew he had a secret, heroic side. He sent a text message, his fingers moving with a newfound, hesitant confidence. He tried to make it sound as casual as possible.
[Chris Day]: Hey, weird question. Any chance you know someone who has a copy of the full proposal for that big Gateway project?
He hit send, his heart pounding a little faster. This was a big ask. He was asking her to procure a sensitive government document for him. He was asking her to be a co-conspirator.
The reply came back almost instantly.
[Jessica Lange]: That whole thing feels super shady. My friend's mom is on the town council. Let me ask.
Chris stared at the message, a smile spreading across his face. She hadn't questioned him. She hadn't asked why. She had just agreed. Her own instincts told her something was wrong, and she was willing to help. The [Ally] status, he was learning, was more than just a title. It was a tangible bond of trust.
The next hour was a long, slow buildup of anxiety. He paced his room. He tried to play Vexlorn, but he couldn't focus. He kept checking his phone, his email, his phone again.
Finally, his phone buzzed with a new email notification. His heart leaped into his throat. The email was from an address he didn't recognize, a string of random letters and numbers. The subject line read:
"TOP SECRET DOCS ;)"
The email contained a single attachment: an 80-page PDF file titled "BGI_Full_Proposal_Final_Draft.pdf." A notification appeared in his HUD chimed.
[Ally Action Successful: Jessica Lange has provided key intelligence.]
He had it.
He downloaded the file and opened it on his main monitor. The document was a dense wall of text. It was a complete corporate jargon, a dissertation on financial projections, a novel-length exploration of zoning variances and environmental impact reports. It was designed to be unreadable, a document so boring and so complex that no one on the town council would ever bother to read it in its entirety.
But Chris had a secret weapon of his own. He activated the [Reality Architect] skill he had unlocked for this kind of thing.
[Function: Analyze Contractual Integrity]
His HUD came alive. A shimmering, diagnostic filter overlaid the dense, black-and-white text of the PDF. The document began to scroll rapidly on his screen, the text a blur as the System cross-referenced every clause, every sub-section, every footnote, checking for logical fallacies, internal contradictions, and deceptive language. It was a cosmic legal review, a high-speed audit.
The scan finished. The document on his screen was now highlighted in multiple colors. Most of the text was a healthy green, the boring, boilerplate legal language that filled most of the document. But several key clauses, tucked away deep in the document's dense depths, glowed red.
He hovered his focus over the first highlighted section, a clause in the chapter on budget and financing. A System tooltip appeared, explaining.
[Clause 12b: "Project budget may be subject to revision based on unforeseen geological complications, including but not limited to soil composition, bedrock depth, and subterranean water table fluctuations."]
[System Analysis: This is a well-known embezzlement loophole, allowing for unlimited budget overruns with minimal oversight. The term "unforeseen geological complications" is intentionally vague and legally unenforceable.]
Chris felt a cold knot form in his stomach. He scrolled down, his eyes searching for the next red flag. He found it in Appendix C, the section on material sourcing.
[Appendix C: Primary aggregate and asphalt sourcing for the Gateway Initiative will be contracted to the locally-owned and operated "Appalachian Alternate Aggregate."]
[System Analysis: "Appalachian Alternate Aggregate" is an unrated shell corporation. No public record of previous projects or equipment assets found.]
He focused on the name of the shell corporation, running a nested [INSPECT] command.
[Organization: Appalachian Alternate Aggregate, LLC]
[Date of Formation: 1 month ago]
[Sole Registered Owner: Dale Dobson (Relationship to Mayor Bob Thompson: Brother-in-law)]
There it was. The mayor was planning to award a multi-million-dollar, no-bid contract to a company that didn't exist, a company that was owned by his own brother-in-law.
He scrolled to the final red-flagged clause, this one in the section on long-term leasing and revenue.
[Clause 34a: "Veridian Developments will be granted exclusive retail and commercial leasing rights for all properties within the Gateway Plaza for a term of 99 years."]
[System Analysis: This clause effectively transfers all significant, long-term revenue from the project to a private, out-of-state corporation, robbing the town of any meaningful future income from its own downtown redevelopment.]
The System had dissected and laid bare the entire scam. It was a multi-stage, perfectly legal, and very immoral plan to defraud the citizens of Buckhannon. Chris stared at the highlighted, annotated document, a feeling of fury solidifying in his chest.
But as he stared at the multi-million dollar grift on the screen, a different, more personal, and far more pathetic feeling began to creep in. He felt a sense of his own financial inadequacy. He was a man who had just uncovered a massive political conspiracy, a man with the power to literally reshape reality. And he had barely anything to his name.
The glowing, persistent text of his own [Quest: Gainful Employment] glowed mockingly in the corner of his quest log.
With a heavy sigh, he opened a new browser tab. He closed the window on the Mayor's grand, corrupt scheme and navigated to a local West Virginia job board. The website's cheerful, folksy logo, a cartoon drawing of a black bear waving from behind a mountain, contrasted his current mood.
He clicked on the "Entry-Level" section and began to scroll.
The job listings were a tour of mundane, minimum-wage reality.
* Cashier at Shop 'n' Save - Buckhannon, WV - Must be able to stand for long periods and have a positive, customer-facing attitude.
* Fry Cook at Tudor's Biscuit World - Buckhannon, WV - Early morning hours required. Experience with a deep fryer preferred but not required.
* Delivery Driver for Pizza Palace - Buckhannon, WV - Must have reliable transportation and a clean driving record.
* Entry-Level IT Support Technician - Buckhannon, WV - Local accounting firm seeks a motivated, detail-oriented individual to assist with basic IT support and network maintenance.
He used his [INSPECT] ability on the job listing. The [Probable Outcome] analysis appeared.
[Probable Outcome (80%): Tasks will involve telling users to turn their computers off and on again.]
[Probable Outcome (10%): Tasks will involve untangling a horrifying nest of ethernet and power cables from under someone's desk.]
[Probable Outcome (10%): Tasks will involve actual, interesting problem-solving.]
He stared at the assessment of his potential future career.
With a deep groan of resignation, a sound that was the physical embodiment of a thousand shattered dreams, Chris Day clicked the "Apply Now" button.
He had a town to save from a corrupt mayor. He had a multi-million-dollar scam to expose.
But first, he had to update his resume.