Chapter 10 — The Tag
And thus begins Chapter Ten.
Now, children.
Victory had happened.
Demigodz Ancient
fallen.
OMG Ancient
standing.
Crowd
loud.
Ego
dangerously inflated.
The council nods.
Naturally.
But apparently the tournament was not finished handing out little pieces of validation.
We gathered inside the computer lab.
Everyone seated.
Teams.
Players.
Organizers.
Spectators.
The battlefield had become an awards hall.
The council settles in.
Announcements began.
Best support.
Applause.
Best carry.
Applause.
Best something else.
More applause.
Children.
The little individual titles.
Minor achievements within the larger victory.
Because even though Dota is five people functioning as one deeply argumentative organism,
the individual performances still matter.
Someone had supported beautifully.
Someone had carried beautifully.
Someone had done whatever their role demanded with enough competence to receive a title for it.
The council nods.
Good for them.
I clapped.
Probably.
Perhaps while waiting for the only category Gamer Nuo truly cared about.
Because eventually
the final one.
The council leans forward.
MVP.
Most Valuable Player.
Of the tournament.
Children.
Not one game.
Not one round.
The tournament.
The room listened.
I listened.
Hex listened.
And then
“Nuo.”
Silence.
The council erupts.
NUO.
Children.
Glorious.
Absolutely glorious.
The title landed directly in the part of my brain already swollen by victory.
Tournament champions.
And now
MVP.
The council looks alarmed.
Ego levels?
Critical.
Correct.
I grinned.
Not politely.
Not:
Oh, thank you, what an honour.
Children.
Grinned.
Because I had played well.
I knew I had played well.
And now an external authority had officially certified:
Yes.
The idiot was gaming exceptionally today.
The council applauds.
I turned toward Hex.
And held out my palm.
The council pauses.
No words?
None required.
Palm.
Open.
Waiting.
Hex looked at it.
Then at me.
And children
begrudgingly
reached for his necklace.
The council becomes interested.
Why?
Ah.
Context.
Because this moment had begun months earlier.
Before NIT.
Before Stalker.
Before the police Jeep.
Before the computer lab.
Before the finals.
Before any of this.
The council opens an older file.
Kanyakumari.
Children.
I had returned from Kanyakumari with something.
A necklace.
Bone tag attached.
Nyx had given it to me there.
Something to commemorate my first high.
At the time?
Just a cool souvenir.
A thing I liked.
A memory hanging around my neck.
Nothing more.
No relic system.
No bracelet mythology.
No archive designation.
Just
bone tag.
The council nods.
Then Hex saw it.
Liked it.
And eventually
acquired one of his own.
Children.
Matching?
Not necessarily.
But same idea.
Bone pendant.
Bone tag.
His necklace.
Mine.
Two gamers walking around with little pieces of bone hanging from their necks because apparently our aesthetic had become:
mildly cursed archaeology.
The council approves.
Now fast forward.
Day before tournament departure.
The council grows interested.
A wager.
Because of course there was a wager.
Children.
Gamers cannot merely attend a tournament.
There must be additional stakes layered onto existing stakes until stupidity reaches optimal density.
The agreement was simple.
MVP
gets the other’s necklace.
The council pauses.
You wagered relics?
They were not relics yet.
Important.
At the time,
they were necklaces.
Cool necklaces.
Possessions.
Things we liked.
That was enough to make the bet meaningful.
The council nods.
If Hex got MVP
he took mine.
If I got MVP
I took his.
Simple.
No money.
No complicated terms.
No legal department.
Just:
Best player gets both.
The council writes:
WAGER:
BONE TAG.
CONDITION:
MVP.
And then we departed.
Mandatory joint.
Bus.
Calicut.
Police.
NIT.
Tournament.
Everything else.
Children.
The bet simply waited.
Quietly.
Around our necks.
Until now.
The council returns to the awards ceremony.
“Nuo.”
MVP.
I turned.
Palm out.
No need to remind Hex.
He knew.
Children.
Of course he knew.
He looked at me with the expression of a man who was simultaneously:
happy for his best friend,
annoyed by contractual obligations,
and perhaps regretting making a bet with someone currently holding the trophy title.
The council laughs.
Slowly
necklace off.
Placed into my palm.
The bone pendant resting there.
Mine.
The council nods solemnly.
Acquired.
And Story Nuo’s reaction?
Not:
This object shall one day become a sacred relic representing the Twelfth Wandering.
Children.
Absolutely not.
Story Nuo’s philosophical depth at that exact moment was:
Haha.
Hex.
I own your necklace.
The council erupts.
Perfect.
That was it.
Victory.
MVP.
And theft legalized by prior consent.
The council raises a finger.
Wager acquisition.
Yes.
Better wording.
Children.
I had won it fairly.
The necklace had changed ownership under gamer law.
Hex had agreed.
The tournament gods had ruled.
Nuo MVP.
Nuo necklace.
No appeal.
The council nods.
And I loved it.
Not because I understood what it would become.
I didn’t.
Not because I was collecting Wanderings.
I wasn’t.
It was simply a trophy layered inside another trophy.
The tournament gave me MVP.
Hex gave me the pendant.
One title became one object.
Children.
Physical evidence of bragging rights.
The council smiles.
And that is why this particular tag matters now.
Present Nuo looks backward
and sees what Story Nuo could not.
Kanyakumari’s bone tag had already entered the timeline.
Then Hex saw it.
That created his tag.
Then a Dota tournament created a wager.
Then the MVP result transferred that tag to me.
And decades later
the object became something else entirely.
A relic.
The council grows quiet.
Not because it was purchased in Calicut.
It wasn’t.
Not because it was made for the Wandering.
It wasn’t.
But because this was where it became mine.
NIT Calicut.
MVP.
Hex’s reluctant hand.
My obnoxiously open palm.
The council laughs.
Children.
Relics do not always arrive ceremonially.
Sometimes you find one floating in a wave pool.
Sometimes somebody gifts you one.
Sometimes you buy one because your crow brain says:
Yes.
And sometimes
you win one off your best friend through a Dota wager.
The council nods.
A diverse sacred tradition.
Story Nuo had no idea.
He probably put it on immediately.
Or pocketed it.
The exact handling is less important than the acquisition.
It belonged to me now.
And I had the most irritating possible reason to mention it forever.
“Remember when I took your necklace?”
The council imagines Hex’s future annoyance.
Worth it.
Now.
There is something wonderfully stupid about the chain of events.
Nyx gives Nuo a bone necklace because:
First high.
Hex sees Nuo’s necklace and thinks:
Cool.
Gets his own.
Months later
two gamers decide:
Whoever wins MVP gets the other one’s.
Children.
This is how traditions begin when nobody realizes they are traditions.
Not with planning.
Not with symbolism.
With:
Haha bet.
The council nods.
Then history gets involved later and becomes insufferably poetic about it.
Present Nuo is guilty.
Very.
But we should preserve Story Nuo’s version.
He did not hold that pendant and feel destiny.
He felt triumph.
Pure,
petty,
best friend triumph.
Hex had lost the wager.
I had won.
Therefore:
Haha.
Mine.
The council laughs.
And Hex?
He handed it over.
Because children,
a wager is a wager.
Especially between best friends.
He might be annoyed.
He might be reluctant.
But there was never any question of:
No, I’m keeping it.
The result was official.
MVP:
Nuo.
Case closed.
The council stamps the file.
And perhaps Stalker saw all this.
Maybe watched the exchange.
Maybe asked what the hell we were doing.
Maybe already knew about the bet from the previous night’s discussions.
The Archive does not preserve that part.
So we do not invent it.
What survives?
The palm.
The grin.
Hex taking off the necklace.
The weight of the pendant landing in my hand.
Children.
A tiny moment after a much larger victory.
And yet all these years later
the tournament trophy is metaphorical in memory.
The cash?
Spent.
The exact prize amount?
Gone from the Archive.
The bracket?
Mostly reduced to OMG versus Demigodz.
But the tag?
That survived.
The council grows quiet.
Objects are strange.
They outlive the context that made them ordinary.
At the time,
Hex’s necklace was just something cool he wore.
Then it became a wager.
Then my prize.
Now?
A piece of a Wandering.
Not because I decided that day:
This represents NIT Calicut.
But because when I look at it now,
that is what comes back.
The computer lab.
The final.
The roar when Demigodz’s Ancient fell.
MVP.
Hex’s face.
My open hand.
His reluctant surrender.
The council smiles.
Memory attaches itself after the fact.
Children.
The tag does not contain the Wandering.
But sometimes it knows where the door is.
And this one?
The door opens into NIT Calicut.
Into Gamer Nuo.
Into one of those periods where I was genuinely good at something
and obnoxiously aware of it.
The council laughs.
Fair.
I had earned the title.
Let Story Nuo enjoy himself.
He was MVP.
His team had won.
His best friend had lost a necklace.
His self declared stalker was somewhere nearby.
And his bank balance was richer than when he arrived.
Children.
This was becoming an offensively successful trip.
The council checks all completed objectives.
TOURNAMENT:
Won.
RIVAL:
Defeated.
MVP:
Nuo.
WAGER:
Collected.
FIRST KISS:
Acquired.
STALKER:
Still inexplicably present.
DOG:
Petted.
POLICE ENCOUNTER:
Survived through Hex.
Children.
Excellent performance.
And somewhere beneath all that
another relic had quietly entered the Archive
years before there was an Archive.
The council looks toward the pendant.
Not mystical then.
Not sacred.
Not symbolic.
Just
Haha, Hex.
I own your necklace.
And perhaps that is exactly why I like these old relic stories.
The meaning came later.
The stupidity came first.
As it should.
Thus concludes Chapter Ten.
The Awards Ceremony.
The Minor Titles.
The MVP.
Nuo.
The Open Palm.
The Old Kanyakumari Necklace.
The Wager.
Hex’s Reluctant Surrender.
And The Second Bone Tag To Enter Nuo’s Possession.
Children.
Months earlier,
Nyx gave me a bone tag to remember my first high.
Hex saw it and got one of his own.
Then we made the perfectly mature decision
to wager them on tournament MVP.
I won.
The council looks at the tag.
Present Nuo calls it a relic.
Story Nuo called it something much simpler.
Mine.
