I push upright and sit with it a minute anyway, letting the ghost of last night’s rhythm taper off. There’s a pull to close my eyes and fall back in. I don’t. Not yet.
Monitor on. Browser up. Nod is everywhere.
The directory page looks like a stained-glass window: one hundred live panes, most of them showing empty thrones. A few are moving, territory borders creeping, banners changing, the odd patrol crossing a courtyard. My thumbnail sits near the bottom again: CH100, The Black Sand Dominion. The still image is the throne room at rest, violet light combing the floor. Viewers: higher than yesterday. Comments still update in a slow trickle.
I skim the analytics page. Followers up. Session length climbing. Someone compiled timestamps for “First Road,” “Fortress Raise,” “Library Breach.” There are clip names I didn’t write but recognize instantly.
Alt-tab: Reddit.
r/NodCH100 is louder today, fan sketches of the fortress silhouette, a thread arguing whether the drones are “Cute little guys,” a slowed clip of the Chime strike framed like a movie trailer.
I jump to r/NodNetwork, the general theory pit. People are mapping travel times between kingdoms with screenshot triangulation and the new regional view. Someone drew probable borders as red felt-tip lines on a screenshot and called it science. I mark a few ideas to test:
Do listening-post chains extend resonance range indefinitely?
If I log out in one place with the intent to log in at the throne, do I re-anchor?
Do time-of-night differences affect resource yields?
Discord blips. Victor.
Victor: alive?
Me: More or less.
Victor: You see 34 lately? Clock guys? They’re nuts.
I can almost hear the grin through the text.
Me: Haven’t checked since yesterday.
Victor: Go look. He’s building layered patrols, like concentric rings. Every pass triggers little organ chimes on the towers.
I open CH34 in another tab.
The Iron Choir’s city fills the frame, aerial view, for once. Brass and black stone stitched together by walkways and gantries. The tallest tower is a clock-face split by a lance of shadow; organ pipes climb its flanks like ribs. No king visible, just a herald in white at the base of the tower reading orders that echo down the streets. The patrols wheel on schedule. Each time they cross a marked point, a brief chord lifts and settles, a mechanical heartbeat the city can hear.
Chat crawls in measured lines.
[ink_and_ash]: Patrol interval just ticked down 5s. Scaling test?
[gearling]: Those beacon chimes are comms relays I’m betting.
[tessellate]: This city is a machine.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Victor pings again.
Victor: See what I mean? He’s not flashy. He’s… building a thesis.
Me: It’s Efficient.
Victor: Exactly. Feels sustainable.
I leave the Choir open and pull up CH75, Thalos. The throne is empty at the moment, but the replay carousel is a riot of heat and motion. Scott laughing, sand streaming off the hammerhead in sheets. Hamu, his tiger, pacing the edge of a ridge, eyes catching light like coins. His chat is an engine all its own, positivity and bravado in equal measure. He’ll own daytime once he figures out his leadership style.
Victor: Gonna be honest, I thought the sand bro would annoy me. But he’s actually… good with people.
Me: That’s Scott for you.
Victor: He always was the center of attention back then.
I scroll to the global top again. CH47, The Celestine Dominion, sits higher every time I check. The Cleric King’s channel is a bastion of light: white stone, gold filigree, courtyards full of kneeling faithful. The camera angle never strays far from the main dais. He’s not visible at the moment, but his heralds are busy, processions, proclamations, the promise of order repeated in velvet tones. The chat is fervent, coordinated. They pin links to “approved restreams,” share prayer macros, quote his lines like doctrine.
A trending clip is titled Mercy’s Weight. I don’t click it. I don’t want his voice in my head this morning.
Victor: You think alliances are forming already?
Me: They always do.
Victor: If you were in there, hypothetically, you’d find a way to be Switzerland for twenty-four hours and then show up with siege plans on day two.
Me: I’d show up with roads.
Victor: Same thing with fewer flags.
I smile, small and unguarded, and let the window breathe.
The rest of the morning becomes notes. Small, exact, boring to anyone else and necessary to me. I mark patrol timings from the Choir, interval changes, how the relays answer. I jot down the cadence of Scott’s most-watched fight, what chat loved, what he repeated, what he refined on the second swing. I clip a thread from r/NodMakers, a community already designing fake tech trees for their favorite kings like it’s a group project.
Between tabs, my channel sits open in the corner. The empty throne frame still hums faintly through the monitor, a reminder I can slide the world on like a glove whenever I blink too long.
My stomach argues; I ignore it long enough to refill a glass and answer Victor’s call when it pops.
“Hey,” he says. “You sound awake.”
“Define awake,” I say.
“Conscious enough to play a game with me.” He rustles something, probably a bag of chips, and lowers his voice. “So. Purely as fans of this thing. Strategy thoughts?”
“Roads win wars,” I say. “Information does too. Whoever learns more, moves faster.”
“Wild how you say that like you are in the running,” he says, amused. “I like the Clockfather’s relays. And that light guy, Forty-Seven, he’s pulling a lot of viewers for someone who does speeches.”
“People love certainty,” I say. “It’s easier than thinking.”
“That’s dark.”
“It’s true.”
He huffs a laugh. “Anyway. I’m bouncing soon, have plans to go to a movie today. Just… don’t ghost me this week, yeah?”
“I won’t,” I say, and mean it. “Tomorrow night we’ll run something after work.”
“Deal.”
I'm left in the discord call alone. The apartment settles into the soft churn of the PC fans. Sunlight crawls across the desk.
I make one last pass through the notes. Three tests for tonight:
Anchor test: I logged out somewhere other than the throne; log in with the intent to return to the throne. Does intention override location?
Range test: Add two more listening posts to the north line and measure when I stop “feeling” the drones without sap.
Patrol autonomy: Draft a loose template the Hekari can execute without me, routes, fallbacks, reporting tone, then let it run while I watch the map.
I leave the Cleric King’s thumbnail up for a beat, just long enough to see his numbers tick again. He’s gravity, they can’t help but be pulled to him. I might need to be careful of this one.
Enough.
I close the tabs one by one until only my own channel remains. The throne sits patient in the frame, empty and alive.
“Tonight,” I tell the room, because saying it out loud helps. “Roads, range, recall.”
The cursor blinks. The hum keeps its quiet, boring pitch.
I get up, finally eat something, and set an alarm for work the next morning. The crown isn’t here, but the intention is.
When I sleep, I’ll see if Nod listens.