Chapter 4 — Catastrophe
And thus begins Chapter Four.
Now, children.
The marathon began.
And I will spare you the Dota mechanics.
Not because they were unimportant.
To Story Nuo?
They were perhaps the most important thing happening on Earth.
But to you?
Children.
Most of you would stare at words like:
lane.
ward.
gank.
Roshan.
buyback.
high ground.
And wonder whether I had suffered a stroke.
So
summary.
Matches happened.
Some won.
Some lost.
Sometimes Hex made a stupid play.
Sometimes Stalker made a stupid play.
Sometimes I made a stupid play.
The important distinction?
When I made it,
there were usually highly sophisticated strategic reasons.
When they made it
idiocy.
The council immediately objects.
Naturally.
This is Dota.
Objective truth has never survived inside a multiplayer lobby.
So there we were.
Match.
Match.
Match.
Occasionally
rage.
“WHY DID YOU DO THAT?”
Blame.
“No, no, no, that was YOUR fault.”
Counter blame.
Then silence.
Then replaying the stupidity in our heads.
Then
laughter.
Because sometimes anger lasts exactly as long as it takes to realize the play was so catastrophically stupid that even the person yelling can no longer defend the seriousness of the situation.
The council nods.
Then?
Find Match.
Again.
Children.
This was ritual.
Not conflict.
The anger belonged to the game.
The friendship remained untouched beneath it.
And through all this
pot.
Smoke.
Dota.
Smoke.
Dota.
Exactly according to itinerary.
Now.
I had a plan.
The council immediately becomes worried.
A plan?
Yes.
Children.
An intricate one.
A disciplined one.
A responsible one.
A plan designed to ensure the limited supply lasted the entire weekend.
The council looks at the bag.
Two days.
Correct.
The weed had to survive.
Because money was currently trapped in the peculiar demonetisation dimension where
rupees owned?
Plenty.
Rupees spendable?
Approximately one lunch.
The council opens the national economy panel.
ACCOUNT BALANCE:
Exists.
CASH ACCESS:
Ha.
Exactly.
So Story Nuo understood something very important.
Conservation.
Children.
We must ration.
We must exhibit restraint.
We must create rules.
Sacred laws.
A governing framework.
A Weed Constitution.
The council prepares parchment.
Rule One.
Bong shot if I got kills.
Pause.
The council considers.
Fine.
Reward performance.
Reasonable ish.
Rule Two.
Bong shot if I died.
Silence.
The council looks back at Rule One.
So success earns weed.
Yes.
And failure earns weed?
Yes.
The council begins to understand the flaw.
No.
No.
Wait.
There’s more.
Rule Three.
Bong shot if literally any objective was taken.
The council closes its eyes.
By your team?
Yes.
Enemy team?
Also yes.
Taken
or lost.
The council tears up the constitution.
Children.
Perfect conservation strategy.
Absolutely airtight.
Kills?
Smoke.
Deaths?
Smoke.
Team gains something?
Smoke.
Team loses something?
Smoke.
Something significant happens anywhere on the map?
Probably smoke.
The council stares.
You designed a reward system in which every possible outcome produced the same reward.
Children.
Exactly.
Consistency.
The foundation of good governance.
The council refuses to call this governance.
Fine.
Addiction engineering.
More accurate.
But Story Nuo genuinely believed he was implementing restrictions.
This was the important part.
In my head,
I had not created excuses to smoke more.
No.
I had created
guidelines.
Boundaries.
Responsible consumption.
The council looks at the increasingly empty supply.
Sure.
Children.
This is what happens when the addict writes the rationing policy.
The legislation mysteriously contains seventeen loopholes
and every loophole leads directly to another bong shot.
The council nods.
Corruption from within.
Exactly.
And so we played.
Kill.
Rule applies.
Smoke.
Death.
Tragic.
Rule applies.
Smoke.
Tower falls.
Rule applies.
Smoke.
Our tower falls.
Very tragic.
Rule applies.
Smoke.
Some other objective changes hands.
Children.
Rules are rules.
The council groans.
Hours passed.
Matches accumulated.
And the bag
shrunk.
Slowly?
No.
That would imply the conservation plan possessed any relationship with conservation.
It vanished.
Now.
Hex?
Children.
Hex participated.
Of course.
But Hex had functioning calibration.
Perhaps five bong shots total.
Something in that region.
The council turns toward Nuo.
And the rest?
Nuo.
Silence.
Yes.
Children.
Do not ask me to produce percentages.
The Archive does not require mathematics to identify an obvious imbalance.
Hex:
a few.
Nuo:
industrial output.
The council imagines a coal furnace.
Correct.
My smoking at the time possessed the delicate efficiency of a nineteenth century steam engine being fed coal by men whose only instruction was:
MORE.
The council nods.
And yet somehow
I remained surprised by what happened next.
Evening.
The last of it.
Children.
The final bong shot.
I prepared it.
No tragedy yet.
No awareness.
Just routine.
Lit.
Inhaled.
Exhaled.
And then
looked down.
Nothing.
Pause.
The council hears alarms.
Wait.
Where weed?
Gone.
No.
Check again.
Still gone.
Perhaps another part of the bag?
No.
Perhaps Hex placed some elsewhere?
No.
Children.
The entire supply had disappeared.
Through mysterious forces.
The council slowly turns toward Nuo.
Mystery?
I refuse to speculate.
You smoked nearly all of it.
Allegedly.
The council presents evidence.
Fine.
Yes.
Me.
But that is not the point.
The point is
sirens.
Internal sirens.
Emergency lights.
Weekend status suddenly unstable.
I looked at Hex.
Provider.
Manager.
Logistics Department.
Agriculture Department.
Surely this had been accounted for.
Children.
Hex knew me.
This man had watched me smoke before.
He understood the consumption model.
He had years of operational data.
So naturally,
there must be
reserve stock.
I looked at him.
Calmly.
Confidently.
“Bro.
Time for the second pack.”
Pause.
Hex looked at me.
His eyes widened.
“You finished it?”
The council studies his face.
Emotion?
Multiple.
Exhaustion.
Mild surprise.
Disbelief.
But beneath all of it
that unmistakable expression:
Yeah.
That checks out.
Children.
He had hoped for better.
But he knew me too well to be truly shocked.
I stared back.
Yes.
Obviously finished.
Hence
second pack.
The council waits.
Hex did not move.
Danger.
Then he spoke.
And children
Story Nuo heard perhaps the worst sentence available in the English language at that particular moment.
“Bro.
We only had the one pack.”
Silence.
The council gasps.
No.
Yes.
One.
Pack.
Total.
The council checks storage.
RESERVE:
None.
SECONDARY SUPPLY:
None.
EMERGENCY WEED:
None.
NUO:
Dry again.
Children.
Catastrophic disaster.
The luxury weekend had suffered structural collapse.
I looked at Hex.
Provider status?
Revoked temporarily.
Because how
HOW
does Hex fail to calibrate supply?
The council points toward the empty bag.
Perhaps because one normal human would not consume
Irrelevant.
Children.
This man knew his customer.
He had seen the engine.
He knew this was not a candle.
This was not:
a puff here.
a puff there.
No.
Nuo smoking weed at that stage of life was synonymous with a steam locomotive demanding fuel while moving uphill.
COAL.
MORE COAL.
WHY HAVE WE STOPPED SHOVELLING COAL.
The council sighs.
And Hex had brought
one sack.
Negligence.
The council refuses liability judgment.
Fine.
But Story Nuo considered it negligent.
I looked at him as though he had personally sabotaged the pilgrimage.
Twelve hours.
Bus.
Fast Travel.
Hostel smell.
Bunk bed continent.
Quadrant Two.
Laptop resurrection.
Dota marathon.
And now?
No weed.
Before even the first day had properly finished.
The council checks time.
Evening.
Exactly.
We had failed to survive until night.
The two day luxury plan had consumed its primary resource in
hours.
Children.
Impressive.
In a bad way.
Now.
Dota?
Stopped.
Immediately.
The council looks confused.
But you travelled to play Dota too.
Yes.
But Dota without weed?
Story Nuo rejected the altered service package.
The luxury weekend required both pillars.
Pot.
Dota.
Remove one?
Structure unstable.
Children.
It is like booking a beach resort and discovering the ocean has been removed.
The council does not accept this analogy.
Story Nuo did.
I turned toward Hex.
Demand issued.
“Take me to your dealer.”
Simple.
Children.
If supply runs out
find source.
Hex stared.
Then presented a minor issue.
Money.
Ah.
Yes.
The national monetary crisis.
The thing quietly waiting in the background while we smoked ourselves into a logistical emergency.
The council reopens the economy panel.
Hex reminded me:
we did not possess usable cash.
Not enough.
Could we theoretically afford more?
Yes.
Could our bank accounts prove this?
Yes.
Could we convert that theoretical wealth into the actual spendable notes required at that moment?
Children.
That
was the problem.
ATMs had become pilgrimage sites.
Queues stretched.
Cash limits existed.
New notes were scarce.
Old notes had become awkward pieces of paper with complicated rules attached.
And phone payments were not yet the effortless universal escape hatch they would become years later.
We had money.
We just couldn’t easily turn it into
money.
The council nods.
A uniquely annoying sentence.
Exactly.
Hex explained the obvious.
Dealer required payment.
We lacked spendable rupees.
Therefore
no weed.
Story Nuo rejected the conclusion.
There must be another method.
Children.
When a pot addict encounters a supply chain obstacle,
the mind becomes an innovation lab.
Not necessarily a good innovation lab.
But active.
Very active.
Could someone lend?
Could cash be found?
Could an ATM work?
Could some forgotten note exist somewhere?
Could
The council raises a hand.
We stop before tactics become tutorial.
Fair.
All that matters is:
problem.
Supply available somewhere in Chennai.
Money technically owned.
Money practically inaccessible.
The entire country had chosen this particular week to turn cash into a side quest.
The council looks at Story Nuo.
And suddenly
the weekend itinerary?
Dead.
Yes.
Children.
Smoke weed.
Play Dota.
Repeat.
Simple.
Elegant.
Perfect.
Gone.
Because the first item had consumed itself.
And without Item One,
Story Nuo refused to continue peacefully with Item Two.
The council closes Dota.
Find Match?
Cancelled.
The laptops remained.
Stalker remained online.
Hex remained beside me.
But the mood had changed.
The holiday ended.
Children.
This is the exact point.
Until then
Chennai was not really a Wandering.
Not in the way the Archive understands the word now.
It was a destination with a plan.
A supply run.
A controlled weekend.
Everything working.
Bus.
Hex.
Hostel.
Weed.
Dota.
No uncertainty.
No road pulling me anywhere.
No need to improvise.
Then
empty bag.
And suddenly,
the plan broke.
The council looks up.
Ah.
Yes.
Children.
You know this pattern by now.
A Wandering rarely begins when the ticket is booked.
Sometimes it begins when the plan stops functioning.
When the itinerary dies.
When control becomes inconvenience.
When the next step is no longer obvious.
Story Nuo did not know that.
He simply knew:
Need weed.
No weed.
Need money.
No usable money.
Dealer somewhere out there.
The council marks the map.
And Chennai
the city I had dismissed as background
suddenly became relevant.
Because the thing I needed was no longer waiting conveniently in Quadrant Two.
It was somewhere outside.
Somewhere across roads.
Among ATMs.
Banks.
People.
Queues.
Cash scarcity.
A city operating under one of the strangest financial moments of that era.
Children.
The luxury weekend ended there.
Not metaphorically.
Operationally.
The comfy little bubble of:
smoke,
Dota,
repeat
popped.
Hex looked tired.
Stalker was somewhere digitally witnessing the collapse of our perfect itinerary.
And Nuo?
Focused.
Tunnel vision.
New quest.
The council opens the log.
PRIMARY QUEST:
Acquire more weed.
OBSTACLE:
No spendable cash.
LOCATION:
Chennai.
AVAILABLE COMPANION:
Hex.
NUO’S WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT DEFEAT:
Low.
COMMON SENSE:
Unclear.
The council looks toward the hostel door.
Children.
That door mattered now.
Because until this moment,
I had no reason to leave.
The city could have stayed invisible.
I could have spent two days in Quadrant Two,
then boarded another bus,
Fast Travel home,
and Chennai would have been little more than coordinates.
But the weed vanished.
The plan failed.
And Story Nuo
unwilling to accept a weedless weekend after travelling twelve hours
was about to enter the city.
The council smiles.
For the dumbest possible reason.
Naturally.
Not curiosity.
Not grief.
Not wonder.
Not enlightenment.
Supply shortage.
Children.
The roads do not care why you step onto them.
And sometimes
neither does the Archive.
Thus concludes Chapter Four.
The Dota Marathon.
The Wins.
The Losses.
The Rage.
The Blame.
The Laughter.
The Sacred Conservation Plan.
Kill?
Smoke.
Death?
Smoke.
Objective Taken?
Smoke.
Objective Lost?
Smoke.
The Most Foolproof Rationing System Ever Designed By An Addict.
Hex’s Five Or So Bong Shots.
Nuo’s Steam Engine Consumption.
The Final Puff.
The Empty Bag.
The Confident Request:
“Bro.
Time for the second pack.”
The Horror:
“We only had the one pack.”
The Failure Of Provider Calibration.
The National Cash Crisis.
The Death Of The Luxury Weekend.
And
The Birth Of The Actual Wandering.
Children.
I had arrived in Chennai with a perfect itinerary.
Smoke weed.
Play Dota.
Repeat.
By evening,
I had destroyed the first item.
The second immediately lost all appeal.
And somewhere beyond that horrible smelling hostel
was a city full of weed
we technically had enough money to buy
but no money we could actually spend.
The council opens the door.
And just like that
Chennai stopped being background.
The Wandering began.
