The smoke that hung in the air was thick and sweet, yet its scent bordered on bitterness. Colors exploded around him— blood red and the ethereal blue of Protoss energy. The grating sound of his own gasps reverberated through his chest like an echo in a symposium. PartinG had taken a hefty beating at the start of their war for Glostalea, but turned the tides into his favor soon after. Life’s gigantic swarm of Zerg creatures was reduced to his ever present trusty zerglings, but PartinG knew he didn’t have much of his fighting force left either. Close combat would decide whether his gamble would pay off. Still breathing heavily, he took a moment to look around and admire the destruction laid upon the fields outside the city gates. What had once been a peaceful, fruitful field was now a bizarre painting of trampled, brown grass drowning in crimson. PartinG grinned. "They shall blossom again once I’m king," he thought to himself. He closed his eyes for one deep breath, readying his mind for the attack that would surely conquer the world. In that very moment he heard the rushing footsteps and shrill screams of Life’s zerglings. PartinG’s eyes shot open, just in time to catch a flash of white fangs. His arm raised too slowly.

The shock woke PartinG, and the dull pain of a headache soon followed. He let out a disgruntled moan and tried to sit up straight. “Ugh…” he groaned as the darkness before his eyes slowly cleared.

Attempting to wipe his eyelids, he noticed that his fingers were sticky. “Oh, right,” he mumbled to himself. He was still at the bar.

That’s a lot of bottles. Not bad.

He admired last night’s workload in front of him on the table: vodka, whiskey, beer, wine.

Where’d the girls go though? And where the hell did all the sand come from?

He tried to stand up but had to hold on for a second. Just a barf in the end; nothing serious. Onwards.

“Oh, you finally woke up!” yelled a familiar voice from across the room. PartinG looked up and found the barkeeper, carefully sponging down a glass that PartinG was sure he’d drunk from not too long ago.

The guy gave him a cheeky grin and waved him over, “Had a good sleep, eh?”

PartinG shrugged as he stumbled across the wooden room and sank into the closest barstool. “Got any gin left?” he yawned, but the waiter broke into a swell of laughter. “Not for you, I don’t! Try a water first, you look like shit,” he recommended, which PartinG found quite reasonable.

“A water then. To go with my gin and tonic. Do you know where the girls went?”

“Went home I s’pose.” The bartender slid a smaller-than-usual glass of gin and tonic down the bar, followed by a large glass of water.

“Wait, how late is it?” PartinG wondered. The sun was already up outside and he could hear birds chirping annoyingly. The barkeeper winked at him and replied, “11am. I kicked everyone out early after ya passed out. So ya could sleep. Gotta keep my clients happy, ya know?”

PartinG gave a tired smile. “So you kick them out?”

“Yeah. You make me more cash than all of ‘em combined!” Resounding laughter filled the place.

I’m good business wherever I go, PartinG thought to himself.

“How can you afford it anyway? You come here almost every day and drink a month’s worth of booze. You must have found treasure or something…” the waiter asked him, a spark of curiosity in his eyes.

Yeah, I bet you wanna know that.

“I’m not from here,” PartinG answered slowly, “I brought my riches with me.”

The bartender was staring at him expectantly. “Exiled. I rebelled against a king,” PartinG added.

The waiter’s eyes lit up. “Ooooh, really?!” It must have been the first interesting story he’d ever heard from any of his guests. No wonder, there weren’t a lot of interesting people on this island. “Which one’d you fight?”

“Current one,” PartinG sighed. “Life.”

“Ah, one of those, were ya? Heard there was lots of ‘em.” PartinG almost choked on the water.

“Hold on,” he coughed angrily. “Not ‘one of them’. I was there when everyone was dead. When there was nobody left except me and him. I had him on the ropes. I did what no one could in that entire war. I came closer to the throne than anyone else.” He heard himself become ever louder, almost shouting at the end. The gin did good work. It lifted the cloudy veil around his mind, at least temporarily.

“Didn’t mean to offend ya. What went wrong then?” he was asked.

PartinG took a long sip and sighed again. “I let my guard down. I got too greedy, I guess. Took a second I didn’t have.”

The waiter put on a fascinated face, slowly shaking his head. “So I've had a big shot from Glostalea drinking at my bar for the last couple months, huh… Worse ways to be exiled if ya ask me.”

PartinG smirked a little. “Yeah, could be worse.”

The islander’s face lit up and he let out a loud “oh!” as if surprised by his own realization. “Since ya said Life was the ‘current’ king, ya mustn’t have heard the news yet, I s’pose!”

The smirk was wiped off PartinG’s face immediately. “News?” he probed his opposite who eagerly nodded.

“Some SKT hotshot took ‘em out on his way to Spostalea. I forget his name, but he was a Terran. Some that starts with D.”

“Dream?” PartinG had heard that SKT had brought in a few new recruits after he and Rain had left, Dream being one of them. “Must’ve grown up quite fast.”

He took another sip of the steadily mind-clearing drink. “So who’d SKT put on the throne? INnoVation? Classic?” He almost spat out his drink chuckling, “soO?”

“Last I heard that’s all up in the air. Even though Life’s down, there’s no king. Everybody’s just fightin’ for it apparently.”

PartinG laughed out loudly. “Those idiots will never stay quiet for long. Anyone smells the slightest scent of power and suddenly everyone’s at war. Happens every few months, really.”

Still a bit dizzy and tired, but with lifted spirits, he climbed out of the barstool, pulled out a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it in the barkeeper’s general direction. “Thanks for the good rest. And for making my day.”

“Sure thing, mate.” The man winked at him and tucked the coin away. “Coming back tonight? A few ladies are having a party here. Birthday party too!” He suggestively twitched his eyebrows and PartinG had to chuckle as he made his way to the door.

“Sounds lovely. Yeah, don’t be surprised if I show up.” With these words he stepped out of the bar, into the sunlight.

“Oh god…” he moaned as the sunlight blinded him immediately. As his eyes slowly adjusted, he found himself at the beach. Hot sand found its way into his sandals as PartinG tramped along the shore.

Ah right, that’s where it came from.

It was a wonderful morning, like so many had been on this island, but PartinG was already too deep in his thoughts to appreciate it. Life dethroned, nobody in charge. He must’ve dropped the scepter somewhere near Spostalea. The scepter he was supposed to take from the kid.

Waves softly lapped around his feet as he made his way to his house. Every now and then he looked down at them vacantly as if he were surprised anew each time the water touched him. A vision of Glostalea's fields shot through his mind, a memory of him wading not through sea water, but through Zerg blood.

PartinG stopped. A short way down the beach he spotted his friend in exile, Rain, resting on a sunbed, getting tanned as he did nearly every day, comfortably sipping from what PartinG guessed had to be a mimosa. Rain loved his mimosas.

He was about to raise his hand and greet his companion, when, for a split second, PartinG’s body froze in place as his mind finally sprung into action. The devilish grin that was oh-so characteristic of him appeared on his face. Whether it was the gin spurring him on or a flare of inspiration he’d been lacking recently, he couldn’t really tell. But it did make sense.

Maybe he’d have to disappoint the bartender tonight. Maybe he wasn’t going to come back after all.