Paw Wick - The Continental Den

Fabula

The one they call Baba Yowl

For years he was the most feared moderator in VR. Griefers left instances when he joined. Alt accounts deleted themselves. He worked alone, said almost nothing, and kept a stylus in his breast pocket that the Den does not like to talk about.

Then he met someone, and he retired. When they had to log off for the last time, they left him a gift: a small human named Kevin, house-trained, mostly, and very good at fetch. Paw Wick had something to look after. For a while, that was enough.

Then a stranger deleted his avatar's upload. Not the human. The human is fine. The Den would like to be very clear that the human is fine. But the upload had four years of edits on it, and the stranger did not know whose it was.

III Griefers blocked with a stylus

I Stylus

XXXI Words spoken, all capitula

I Human, who is fine

Rumores

What the Den whispers

The bar

The stylus

He once blocked three griefers in a public instance using only the pencil tool in the world editor. Nobody knows how. The pencil was never seen again.

The lift

The four o'clock lobby

He sat alone in a con hotel lobby at four in the morning and nobody tried to start a conversation with him. Not one person. At a con.

The desk

The panel

He sat through an entire ninety-minute panel without checking his phone. The panellists still talk about it. One of them cried.

The cellar

The question

Asked whether he was back, he paused, and said “yeah.” He has been asked two hundred and twelve times since, and has given the same answer each time.

Capitula

The four capitula

Capitulum I

Uploadus Deletus

A stranger deletes the wrong wolf's avatar. A quiet retirement ends in a single night and an extremely long block list.

Capitulum II

Pawgnus

An old pawgnus is presented at the door. Paw Wick must honour it, which means helping a former colleague move house in VR. All of it. Every prop.

Capitulum III

Para Bellyrub

Declared Fursona non grata with one hour's grace, Paw Wick crosses the whole Den on foot, with the human, who needs a toilet stop on every floor.

Capitulum IV

Consummatum Fest

The Mensa Alta, a convention, a staircase of two hundred and twenty-two steps and a duel conducted entirely in mutes at dawn.

Numerus

The tally, in blocks and mutes

Every confrontation in the legend ends the same way: with a block or a mute. Nobody is hurt. Several people are very inconvenienced.

Capitulum	Blocks and mutes
I, Uploadus Deletus Every griefer in one public instance, and all their alt accounts	84.00
II, Pawgnus Including an entire moving company that turned out to be one person	128.00
III, Para Bellyrub One of them was a good boy, blocked by accident, unblocked with an apology and a treat	301.00
IV, Consummatum Fest Three of them were the same guy, wearing different hats	417.00
Total, so far	930.00

Other tallies	Count
Times asked “are you back?”	212.00
Times answered “yeah”	212.00
Suits ruined All repaired by the Medicus, who did not ask	9.00
Times the human needed a toilet stop	38.00

Pignus pawlinum

The pawgnus

A pawgnus is a marker: a gold medallion that opens to show a single pawprint pressed in ink. To press one is to owe a favour. To be handed one is to have that favour called in, and Regula III says it must be honoured, however long ago it was pressed and however large the favour has become.

Favours the Den has seen honoured include carrying someone's bags across a con, listening to an entire fursona backstory with slides, and lending out a purreus that has never, in four hundred years, come back.

An open gold medallion on a dark desk beside a fountain pen. Inside the lid is engraved PAWGNVS; inside the base is a single pawprint pressed in deep red ink. — A pawgnus, open. The ink is red. The Den will not say what kind.

0 Pawgni pressed and not yet honoured

Cura humani

Care of the house human

Kevin stays with Paw Wick on the eleventh floor. The staff have prepared a care sheet for any guest who may be asked to mind him for an evening.

Feeding

Cereal, standing up

Once a day, at around eleven at night, over the sink. He will say he isn't hungry. He is.

Grooming

Refuses

Shower him only when he can no longer be in the room with the wolf. He will act as though this is a betrayal.

Exercise

Fetch

Throw anything and he will bring back his phone. He has never brought back what was thrown.

Sleep

Just resting his eyes

On the sofa, with the television on. Do not turn it off. He is watching it.

0 Guests on the human adoption waitlist

Nota bene

Nobody is hurt in the legend.

Paw Wick and Kevin are invented, and so is everyone they meet. Every fight in the legend is a block or a mute, every griefer is made up, and no real person, world, convention or platform is meant by any of it. The human, once again, is fine.