Parched, penniless, and pursued

Vermouth vanishes … Crypto crumbles … Phantoms follow?

Good evening, connoisseurs of courage and comfort. I am Bron Urgundy, and you are watching BS News, still broadcasting from the besieged luxury of San Cristobal.

THE MINIBAR IS DRY. I made you a promise, folks. I told you I would remain at my post until it ran out. At twenty to midnight on Thursday, I unscrewed the last miniature of hotel gin, drank it standing at the window, and observed a moment of silence. Baxter observed it with me from under the sofa. He has not come out since August.

The vermouth went first, as I reported. Then the dry sherry. Then the cognac, the little bottles of champagne, and finally a green liqueur with a parrot on the label that I would describe as a cry for help. By Wednesday, the minibar contained one tin of salted cashews and a postcard of the canal in happier times.

A lesser man would have evacuated. A lesser man would have accepted the economy seat. Instead, I did what reporters have done since the invention of the printing press. I put on my second-best loafers and went out into the street to buy a drink.

There is a little shop on the corner of the plaza. It had vermouth. Three bottles, dusty, at a price I can only describe as wartime opportunism. I was prepared to pay it. I held out my phone. The owner looked at the screen, looked at me, and laughed so hard he had to sit down on a crate of tinned peaches.

Here is what you need to understand. Since August, my entire personal fortune has been held in OnMun, the stablecoin of the future. A very well-dressed gentleman explained it to me at the hotel bar on the night the invasion began. It cannot crash, he said. It is pegged. It is stable. It is right there in the name. And when socialist tanks are rolling toward the canal, a man wants his savings somewhere no commissar can reach them.

Then, two weeks ago, the Kingdom of Sunseong banned it outright. The Royal Bank of @Sunseong called it a scam. Overnight, my portfolio became worth approximately one cashew. The well-dressed gentleman has since checked out of the hotel. He did not settle his bar tab, which I find ironic. And BSN accounting froze my company card after my Antargis expense report, over a few cases of scotch that were, I maintain, operationally essential. So I stood on that corner, folks, a man of means without the means.

Now ask yourself: why would a kingdom on the other side of the wurld pull the rug in the very week Bron Urgundy needs a drink? I am not saying it was personal. I am saying I have enemies, and they have central banks.

And while I was standing there, parched and penniless, my producer called. He had seen something on the wire. He told me to sit down. I sat down on the tinned peaches.

THEY ARE HERE.

You remember Antargis. You remember how I went down into that bunker under Joint Base Winfield and came up into a different reality, where the guards had never heard of Seylos and told me, to my face, that I was standing on a Nova Occidentalis base. You remember that the network sent me a therapist. I sent her back.

Well, guess who just turned up in Manamana. The so-called Coalition of Nova Occidentalis. Their Arbiter calls this their first true test as a united people. United from where, Arbiter? Which dimension, exactly?

I will be calling them the CON from now on. That is not an insult, folks, it is simply an acronym. In Iberic, the Coalition of Nova Occidentalis becomes the Coalición de Occidente Nuevo, which leaves you with C, O, N. And yes, I am aware of what “con” means in Anglish. A swindle. A fraud. A confidence trick played on honest people. I am also aware that CON is NOC spelled backwards, like a word seen in a mirror, which some might find relevant for a coalition that first appeared to me on the far side of a looking-glass. But I want to be very clear, for the benefit of the Arbiter and his lawyers: I did not choose this name. The Manamanians did. I am merely a humble reporter, repeating what the people on the street are saying. Take it up with them.

Naturally, they did not materialise anywhere near me. They appeared on the far side of the country, in Manaca City, at the eastern end of the canal. That is the one place in Manamana I cannot get to, because the Cruciastâd navy is sitting on the eastern approaches and the canal between us is closed. Coincidence? I have stopped believing in those.

My sources tell me they have sent a Colonel William Asher to negotiate with the local governor. Sixteen square kilometres of land for a permanent airfield. Thousands of tons of asphalt. Hundreds of tons of rebar and concrete. A factory for prefabricated blocks. And this Colonel Asher was a major only a few months ago. Nobody skips ranks like that, folks. Not unless they come from a timeline where they were already promoted.

They have even brought a prince along, a young man called Camden Hayward. And the Wardens of @Pentium are said to be sailing in to join them. Ask yourself why a coalition that did not exist when I left for Antargis needs that much concrete, that quickly. You do not pour sixteen square kilometres of runway for something that is already here. You pour it for whatever is coming through next.

I left Winfield in June. Four months later, the phantoms are building an airport three hundred kilometres from my hotel. I am not saying the portal is following me. I am saying I am the only witness at both scenes.

So here is where we stand. The minibar is empty. My fortune is a joke at a grocery store. And on the other side of a war, an army from another dimension is ordering asphalt in bulk.

I have asked the front desk for a room facing west. Baxter has moved further under the sofa. I filled the last clean tumbler with tap water and dropped in the final ice cube from the bucket, and I am going to drink it slowly.

This is Bron Urgundy, dry, broke, and still on the air. Stay classy, Eurth.

OOC comments:

Bron’s crypto losses are entirely his own fault. Sunseong’s ban was the responsible thing to do, and the “well-dressed gentleman” was exactly what the Royal Bank warned about.
The NOC base and the Pentium deployment come from @Nova_Occidentalis’s posts in the Manamana Crisis thread. Bron’s version of events is, as always, completely unreliable. No portals were involved. Probably.
Bron is still not evacuating despite @Cruciastada advances. He has simply run out of drinks to drink.