Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Serena Pov – January 16 Pov.
"So, what's the idea for the nightclub?" I asked, genuinely curious to know what they had planned. Rebecca seemed quite haughty, while Ravel was proud, and Enid was practically bouncing with excitement.
"Okay, then, if we're going to do something, let's do it big." Rebecca said, pulling out several papers and waving them in her hand. "Not just big, impressive, unforgettable. Ravel has been looking into whether there was a nightclub in the underworld, and the answer, to no one's surprise, was a resounding no."
"Well, there are a few here and there, but they're a sad comparison to what exists in the human world. They're years behind, and they definitely don't compare to what exists in Night City. They're those jazz and blues clubs from over 50 years ago, nothing modern. Despite the influence of the human world on the underworld, it only goes so far... certain things just don't get passed on." Rebecca said with a snort.
"Most devils simply consider strength as the primary reason for reincarnating," Ravel said with a sigh. "So most reincarnated devils have a very similar mindset, or simply aspire to more. It's highly unlikely that any of them would dedicate themselves to creating something like a nightclub in the underworld."
"And that's what we have to capitalize on!" Rebecca said excitedly. "We'll be the first with a modern nightclub, we have the element of surprise and innovation, and we have to make it so big and impressive, to maintain our monopoly!" Rebecca said with a wild smile.
"It's more than likely that if the nightclub in Pentagram City is successful, I have no doubt that other devils will start to replicate it, or at least try to," Ravel said, almost contemptuously.
"And we have to be the best, from the very beginning," Rebecca said firmly. "Great enough to embarrass and impossible for anyone else to match, so that all supernatural beings return to our Nightclub again and again," she added.
"And we've got excellent timing," Ravel said, her eyes gleaming with calculation. "We're about to have the peace conference in Kuoh. That means a ceasefire between the three biblical factions, but it will also demonstrate to the other supernatural beings and pantheons that devils want peace, not to continue fighting."
"We can use that publicity to open Pentagram City to other supernatural beings, and what better way to do that than by throwing the biggest party at the best club in the underworld?" Ravel said with a calculating smile. "The club should have portals to Wallachia; if other pantheons and beings can enter from there, we'll be a gateway."
"We will receive a huge influx of tourists, and we will practically have a monopoly over the other races when it comes to nightclubs. Even if others manage to replicate something similar in other parts of the underworld, we will have the advantage of being the first and the most well-known," Ravel said, her eyes shining.
"And the best way to achieve that is with your magic!" Rebecca said excitedly as she dropped the papers on the table and spread them out. I was truly impressed by her presentation; I wanted to ask if they had rehearsed this, but I simply smiled slightly before looking at the papers with curiosity.
"What... am I seeing?" I asked curiously. I could make out some shots here and there, but... it seemed kind of scattered, like something was missing to tie it all together.
"My turn!" Enid said, bouncing happily. She pulled out one last huge picture and placed it on top. "Distracted Globe!" Enid said cheerfully. The name popped into my head. "The famous zero-gravity dance club from Ready Player One!" Enid said proudly. My eyes widened. Yes, that's where I remembered the name from. We had seen this movie a few months ago.
The most famous dance club in OASIS, there were two versions of Distracted Globe, the one from the novel and the one from the movie, or well, The Company had versions of both in movies, one faithfully adapted, and the other the one I knew; each one was different. Still, they kept the zero gravity 'dance floor' as the main attraction.
My fingers traced the paper with the enormous plan. I saw the huge sphere that was the Distracted Globe from the novel. The club was a huge sphere three kilometers in diameter. The interior was completely hollow, and the laws of gravity changed so that people stuck to the curved inner wall of the sphere, where the bar and everything else were.
The center was a huge, open space that served as a zero-gravity dance floor, accessible by simply jumping from any wall of the sphere.
So yes… I could see the appeal. Although… there was a huge problem. I quickly glanced at the numbers.
"You want me to create a mega structure 3km in diameter? Where on earth would we put that? And what will we do with something so big? I don't even have to do the math to know that more than 100 million people could easily fit in there comfortably, and up to four times that amount could fit in just as easily." I told the three of them incredulously.
And in fact I wasn't lying, if the sphere had a diameter of 3km, the interior would have an area of 28km2, yes, in reality it wasn't 'much', the city had at least 10 times that area, but it was very different to build housing as opposed to cramming people together.
In those 28 km2, if we place many people standing, we could comfortably fit 10 million people. That's several times the population of Pentagram City. And that's not even considering the zero-gravity track, which would be the central volume.
Yes, Distracted Globe was designed to be a huge club for an overpopulated world that could access it from anywhere in the world, something we didn't have.
Rebecca looked entirely haughty, pointing upwards.
"Sky, we'll put it there," Rebecca said with a wild smile.
"I've been looking in detail at our territory and the laws that govern it, and it turns out that while we have limits on expanding laterally without permission, we have no limits on the sky or underground. So we can easily place a mega-structure like a 3-kilometer sphere," Ravel said with a proud smile. I blinked several times.
"That's... good to know," I said, honestly. "But still, I really don't see how we could fill the entire Distracted Globe." I said with a grimace. "I'm pretty sure you could fit all the devils in there and still have room." I said dryly.
"We can adjust the size," Rebecca said without any concern.
"Also, we'll be putting this inside as well," Enid said, searching for other papers. "In the film, they have these floating, jellyfish-like platforms where people could be more private. You mentioned wanting VIP areas for different people, so putting several of these in and having them just float inside the Distracted Globe would be great." Enid said, pointing to it.
"And not only that, we can create some themed ones. We know that electronic music won't be to everyone's taste, but if we place these isolated platforms, each like a micro-sphere, each with its own type of music, like rock, pop, or even jazz, then we would be expanding our range. More variety, more people." Rebecca said with a satisfied smile.
I hummed as I looked at the plans and notes; there were some rather simple and strange drawings that were easy to understand, showing how they wanted everything done.
In theory, the Distracted Globe would be divided into three parts, like three layers. The first would be the wall, the inner surface of the sphere, where people can stick and simply walk along it; it extends 20 meters inwards.
The second layer, which extends 100 meters in depth, is where the platforms would be floating, platforms between 50 and 100 meters high, dozens or hundreds of them, floating and rotating, as if they were slowly orbiting throughout the layer.
And the third, it was still the center, the main dance floor, where everyone would be. At the center of everything would be the DJ, and… Could I also see a huge platform?
I quickly read the notes and understood it immediately; yes, it was a platform, a place to hold concerts, that… it really was a good idea, especially since, from what I could see, Enid's discography was doing quite well.
"Okay, I admit it, it all sounds really good, it's amazing," I said honestly, and the three of them smiled broadly. "But still, I think it's too big. Even if we get a huge crowd, the truth is, the supernatural world doesn't have that many people."
"Even if this is really appealing and tens of thousands of people, or even 100 or 200 thousand people, were to come, it will still look very empty, and that's only if it's possible to gather that many people." I told them with a frown as I looked at the plans.
"And couldn't we bring the humans?" Rebecca asked, shrugging. I wrinkled my nose.
"I mean... There are tens of thousands of humans who actually know the supernatural world. Each devil has an assigned territory and dozens of human contractors. However, it still wouldn't be enough, and in fact, I would have to create different entry points in virtually every corner of the world."
"Which would end the Wallachian entry monopoly you had planned." I said with a grimace.
"And get permission to tell the devils? I mean... we do the same thing the devils do. They hand out pamphlets, thousands of pamphlets with magic circles on them. Not everyone believes in it. What if we do the same thing, but instead of contracts, we place the location of the entrance to the Distracted Globe? " Enid asked, frowning. I opened my mouth, then closed it and looked at Ravel. She wrinkled her nose as she thought.
"That... wouldn't actually break any laws, since it's practically the same thing," Ravel murmured. "We'd need the Satans' permission; the only thing left would be convincing the other high-class devils to let us distribute the leaflets in their cities and create a teleportation point," Ravel murmured quickly.
"Just give them money, some profit from distributing brochures, or from maintaining the website. Most will accept immediately," Rebecca said dully. Ravel just nodded.
"Yes, it's a good idea," Ravel said. I massaged my temple. Just thinking about trying to manage that was going to give me headaches. The logistics of everything involved were terrible. For starters, I'd have to create some kind of automatic translator that wrapped around the Globe so that all the humans could talk to each other.
Furthermore, I would have to create a way to prevent people from simply taking a portal to another part of the world; the last thing I wanted was problems with the governments of different countries when they started to see an increase in their foreign population if people decided to take advantage of the portals. And that was just for starters.
"Let's say that works." I said with a grimace. "It's still too much space, and as much as people like to dance and listen to loud music, it'll be impossible to have a constant population of millions." I said with a grimace.
"Aha! That's why we left the most important thing for last! " Rebecca said cheerfully, almost as if she'd been waiting for me to say that. "As you said, a nightclub can't maintain a constant peak of customers, so we have to attract other types of people to the club." Rebecca said, pulling out another piece of paper.
"A... casino?" I asked as my eyes widened.
"Not one casino, many casinos! All kinds of gambling and all kinds of betting! " Rebecca said cheerfully. I opened my mouth and then closed it. "You were right, people won't stay dancing all the time, especially not every day, and also when you said the surface area inside the sphere is enormous, then we just have to fill them with other things to make sure they come and stay!" Rebecca said, puffing out her chest, as if she were proud of her answer. I looked at her incredulously.
"That would turn the Distracted Club into a casino, not a nightclub!" I said incredulously. "For so many people, gambling will be the main attraction. Besides, how on earth are we going to operate dozens of betting services? We need a huge amount of money to invest. I'm sure that, even though our bank account is overflowing, I don't think we'd be able to finance something like that."
"Besides the fact that there are already hundreds of them in the underworld, I think we even have some in the city. How could ours be more attractive than those with an established reputation? For centuries?! We can't compete." I said incredulously.
" Ooooh, but we can," Ravel said with a mischievous smile. "There's a very quick way to attract people, and that's by using things far more attractive than money." Ravel said proudly. "You forget, we have access to things more valuable than money. We have potions, ingredients, magical tools, magical items, and most importantly, things like Felix Felicis, Phoenix Tears, magical armor, and weapons. Nothing is important to us, especially to you, since you can create them with ease. But to others? They're worth a fortune."
"They'll attract people like moths to a flame. We can use those things for most of the prizes, which would loosen the need for a really big budget. And besides, we can accept the same kinds of payments—ingredients, magical objects, or even ordinary possessions—and everything else. If we stop limiting ourselves to just money, then we can push all of this, and more," Ravel said, her eyes shining. I stared at them in disbelief.
"How on earth did you come up with something like that?" I asked incredulously. Both Ravel and Rebecca looked at Enid, who blushed. "Enid?!" I asked incredulously. She blushed even more.
"It was just an idea!" Enid defended herself, embarrassed. "We were discussing what to do with the space, they mentioned the casino and started throwing out ideas, and then I remembered that anime about food that you made us watch, where they had a huge casino but they only gambled on food, so I suggested doing something similar or the same, and then they planned everything!" Enid said quickly, I blinked as I quickly remembered.
Toriko and the Gourmet Casino. Yes, I could see where they could have gotten the damn idea of a huge casino; the Gourmet Casino measured over 100km2 and 100 billion yen were exchanged daily, it really was something completely colossal.
And I did not doubt that if we put something of that magnitude in Distracted Globe, it would work wonders. Money moves people, as much as or even more than sex; the only thing missing would be food, and just thinking about bringing food from Toriko's world would only cause disaster… maybe.
"Do you want to turn the city into a gambling center?" I asked while massaging my temple.
"We've already got the whole vibe of the city of lust, greed is the same thing," Rebecca said, shrugging. "Besides, we're devils, sin is our thing and all that," she said brazenly. I stared at her blankly.
"And it's not like it's the city, just... Distracted Globe." Enid said with a crooked smile. I sighed wearily.
"And you really think we'll finish all this in... 3 weeks?" I asked with a sneer. The three of them smiled shamelessly at me.
"Time bubble," they said in unison. I glared at them as they returned my words. I clicked my tongue as they laughed and began to look at the plans. This time, I could finally put everything together.
There were dozens of bars scattered across the surface of the Distracted Globe, and I could finally understand what Becca meant when she said we would need a lot of alcohol; we would practically need a huge supply of alcohol to keep all of that fully stocked.
I could see the different types of gambling games set up, and large blank spaces for adding more. Due to a lack of ideas, there were also several restaurants set up, as well as large areas or rooms for privacy, whether for meetings or similar.
And a large number of bathrooms, so many bathrooms scattered throughout the place.
Then there were the platforms, dozens of them already marked, large areas where the themed music platforms would be. Also, there were dozens of gambling platforms; much more importantly, I could see that the most important bets would be placed there, while on the ground, they were simply the normal ones.
There were some smaller platforms, a few meters in diameter, that would serve as private VIP meeting areas. In fact, there were many of these areas on the ground as well; people could rent them for hours for private meetings, protected by powerful enchantments.
Honestly, the more I saw, the more impressed I was. They hadn't just created a nightclub; they had practically designed a kind of miniature city, a complete ecosystem that was Distracted Globe.
And it wasn't a vague idea; they had plans and notes for everything important and many of the secondary things as well. The sheer amount of detail was impressive, something they must have thought about for weeks and spent a lot of time planning.
It was truly impressive, and they certainly weren't lying when they said they would do something really big. In hindsight, maybe it had been a bad idea to give Rebecca control of the project; she would obviously do something truly enormous like this.
And I, obviously, wouldn't deny them anything. Especially not when they put so much effort into it and really thought it through. I mean, I'd finished Arasaka at Lucy's request and created a city out of devils I barely knew, all with just a few days of planning on my part.
Creating a giant sphere for a nightclub/casino that was already fully designed wasn't really that complicated.
"Good," I finally said, and the three of them cheered immediately. "But!" I interrupted them. "I'll only take care of the construction and supplying the necessary materials, but everything else is up to you. Supplying it, finding and training staff, getting the permits to install the portals, and everything else will be your responsibility to get it up and running in less than three weeks. Then you'll manage it constantly or find capable people to do so." I said this definitively to the three of them, and they all nodded enthusiastically.
"Oh, this will be perfect! Now we have to go over many things! We'll need to enchant the whole place! To begin with, fluid elimination! There's going to be a rule against bringing drinks into zero gravity, but there'll always be some gonk who does it anyway, so we don't need drinks floating around the place, or maybe it would be better if you could make the drinks stay in their glasses regardless of gravity?"
"And speaking of that, the floor can't be sticky either; it needs to be kept clean at all times. Just like the weather, cool and dry would be best. Also, an odor eliminator is needed; with so many people, sweat will be the first thing to hit, or in a casino, it will be perfumes. It will be horrible either way."
"Something to filter the air? It can't get too stale and unbreathable, especially if we allow smokers inside. You can also make it filter out and disappear."
"Oh, oh, oh, lighting will be essential. Obviously, the casino needs to be better lit, but I have no idea how you'll make the center dimmer and strobe-lit since it's all, well, empty. And we also need some kind of lighting controller so it can change or be controlled depending on the ambiance; that would be excellent."
"We will definitely need some kind of medical area; it's impossible to prevent accidents. But we also need a way to filter things out. Drugs are not something we want here, especially if they are used against others. We will have to maintain certain standards to uphold our reputation."
"Girls, girls, girls, what do you say to water platforms!? Or something like floating pools or just zero-gravity water spheres that anyone can enter and swim in from any side!? "
"Ooh, that sounds preem! Well thought out, Enid! You can create something like that, Sera?! It also needs to be kept constantly clean. Still, speaking of spheres, instead of platforms for themed dance areas, we could place spheres like bubbles in the center, each with its own style of music, so that each person can float from one bubble to another to change quickly and easily, and leave the platforms for the casinos or VIP areas."
"That would help keep the different zones separate and well-marked. It's a good idea, and, in fact, it might look more visually appealing if each bubble had its own set of lights inside; it would attract more attention."
"That sounds incredible! Should we point them out? I mean, like, add a hologram with the name of the bubble song and stuff, or leave it completely random so people have to go in there to find out?"
"Hmm, I can see how it might upset people if we leave it to chance, so-"
I sighed wearily as I continued listening to the three of them brainstorming back and forth. Yes, I could feel a headache coming on. I didn't even hesitate to take out a cigarette and light it.
Author's Notes: Well, for those who aren't aware, Honkai Star Rail just released a new version, and with it came a new Silver Wolf, Silver Wolf LV.999. Along with it came the story and various videos, so Silver Wolf has added a lot of lore, mechanics, and abilities.
What does that mean? It means that GLaDOS's template will change to accommodate it, though not immediately. Fortunately, everything new that's been added to the canon is at a higher level than GLaDOS's current template, especially considering that Star Wars is an Emanator of the Elation, someone who can draw power from an Eon—in this case, Aha.
The new things will be explained in due course; the most important thing is that Silver Wolf's Aether Editing is different from normal AE because it can break the limits of normal AE. That will be discussed later, but I wanted to mention it now before I forget.