There is a song — a mocking tune — that the soldiers like to intone among themselves, a steady low hum that provides petty respite from the carnage of battle.

“A line of code, a line of war,

Can numbers break a fist?

We have the tools, they are the nails,

A program doomed to fail.”

The ditty had soured to a bitter curse as of late. The stalwart Rioters on the front lines knew, in their heart of hearts, that the tide of bloody war had turned in the Spaghetti Code’s favor.

I am Hunter “RiotHebble” Leigh, League Operations Manager for North America, and I stand at the vanguard of a falling empire.

Three champions disabled would be a foul enough scourge in the uneasy peace of the off season. But during Worlds, the most influential tournament of the year? Not only did we have to deal with the damnable Code, but we were also waging a second front against the Reddit Hordes. To maintain morale, Grand Inquisitor Jeffrey Lin’s nimble fingers had culled any sentiment with a hint of sedition. Yet, we could still feel the Redditean fury from the unrelenting volley of their upvotes.

The war had humble origins — most did.

“We’ll just make a game capitalizing on DOTA!”

It seemed so noble at the time, so achievable. How could the ancient architects have foreseen Caitlyn auto-attack bugs, re-detonation abilities, or Azir? Was there no portent that young men would toil endlessly in the code mines, not even to debug, but to exhume the corpses of experienced, veteran programmers who gave their lives trying to find the cancel trigger for Stand United? Would our forefathers even have cared?

Sometimes, I think about my predecessor and mentor, Nick Allen. With an unwavering grip, he commanded the madness, like a great nomad might reign a contumacious mustang. I remember his grizzled face, the way he unflinchingly pointed the spearhead of our formations and crushed the naysayers after the Great Gambit of 2014. I remember the way the fire in his eyes was extinguished, suffocated under the unrelenting burden of constant fines and disciplinary action. They say he’s enjoying his retirement, a sterile administrative job at Twitch. They say he’ll never chew his food again.

Our strategy is faltering, and leadership has become desperate. Players are being forced to take psychological tests so that when the time comes, Lyte and his Player Behaviour Team know who’ll make the best code mine canaries. In every home and in every square, propaganda like /ALL Chat loops endlessly to keep the masses distracted, but I know the truth.

My musing is interrupted. Our latest results are on the front page of Reddit.

They’re coming.

I shoulder my gear and dive for the nearest foxhole. The only thing I can do is wait it out. I’m in here with RiotMagus. It’s so dark, that I can’t tell if my eyes are opened in nervous vigilance, or closed in weary slumber. I can hear the howl of dank memes on the horizon.

“You could have hotfixed this,” I accuse Magus.

Magus looks at me with haunted eyes, “Introducing a hotfix has the possibility to create even more problems.” Softly weeping into the wad of cash he is clutching, he stammers, “Ultimately we decided that the risk of the hotfix wasn’t worth the gain of fixing the bug.”

He grasps the dollar bills with white knuckles, for life or for good death, but I know there would be no profits in this foxhole.

I can hear the Redditors approaching, the steady thrum thrum thrum of their drums filling the air. They know our position. Their tell-tale battlecries beat in step with my thumping heart: “Does anyone else think they should have just banned Fiora?”

All I can think of are the regrets of my life. I could have found a safer company: Amazon, Microsoft, Valve. A place where the code makes sense and one-in-a-million occurrences didn’t happen nine times out of ten. I should have made things right with the old man. Read more books, loved more, lived more. I whisper a name: Madeline.

There’s still time to make things right. I take an explosive charge from my munitions pack and climb out of the foxhole. I see a snarling pack of the horde and their bloodied eyes, mere yards from where I stand. I’ll defend my people, and I’ll die with the sun on my face and a purpose in my heart. I’ve still time to make things right, I shudder wordlessly. I’m still here.

I pull the pin. To my horror, twenty-five gold pieces clatter in the air. Weak, I fall to my knees as the shadow descends. How could I forget about our true nemesis, Spaghetti Code? The bomb was a minion the entire time.

I reach for another satchel charge, even though I know I won’t be able to recast the ability until I die.

The Redditors are upon me. I welcome their feedback.

–TRANSMISSION ENDS–







