Aldus Divine, as the President for Life of the Space Elves, was a hard elf to get ahold of. Actually, he'd engineered the entire Space Elf civilization specifically so that nobody could ever bother him with anything that approached actual work.

  "I've already done enough, haven't I?" he would say to himself in the mirror, which was a curious artifact that normally summoned a shadowy, evil version of the one who looked into it, but in this case, just summoned a shadowy being with disgusted, disapproving red eyes, because there just wasn't a way to make Aldus worse.

  "Yes," he would croon at his own disgusted reflection, "I've already saved the universe from those disgusting, nasty, oddly sexy humans with their ability to spawn babies like bullets from a gatling gun. I sent them to The System, I think."

  Aldus didn't quite know that he'd done that, because, like any member of his species with two brain cells to rub together, he'd scrambled his own memories of any kind of mistakes which might invite accountability, and then proceeded to spend the next few weeks celebrating his own brilliance with a truly epic bender. He'd left a little notebook for himself to read, and he'd read it, and frankly, he didn't believe a word of it. He strongly suspected that the memories were part of a classic Space Elf gambit, the 'Double Memory Wipe Reacharound', which depending on your tolerance, could easily become a 'Triple' or a 'Quadruple'.

  All of this is to say that he was quite surprised to see three, Not Space Elves in his office. Or at least, Not Space Elves that weren't in obvious and over the top slave gear. One of them was a big orange crystal humanoid, round, disgusting ears. One of them was a skeleton with burning green eyes, dressed like it had raided it's master's closet for expensive coverings. One of them was, quite literally, a slug.

  "Greetings slaves," Aldus said with a pained smile, "goodbye," he continued, then blasted them with his favorite way to get rid of problems. The [System Ray!] It was a localized, more selective version of the phenomena which was normally used to send entire planetary populations into (((The System))). Aldus liked it because, up until this exact moment in galactic history, it was the perfect weapon.

  Evil Space Wizard raiding your slave colonies and freeing your property? [System Ray!] could pierce all defenses, arcane or otherwise.

  Deep Space, sanity shattering entity from beyond the stars, nae, beyond reality itself? [System Ray!] worked regardless of the size of the target!

  Personal Chef fails to understand that your palette has changed, that you no longer enjoy sweets, that he should have realized, that it didn't matter that you had specifically requested that dish, that things change, that cuisine changes? Well, first some light, culinary based torture, then BAM, hit him with the [System Ray!]

  "It always works!" Aldus said, which is what he always said anytime he fired off the [System Ray!], but this time he wasn't saying his catch phrase into a problem shaped void in the air, one which would always remain for exactly one and a half seconds, before collapsing with a satisfying, and catchphrase completing, bang!

  No, this time he was left staring manically at, yes, one disgusting crystal humanoid, one overdressed skeleton, and one literal slug. Which was one act of bestiality which Aldus had never actually considered before, and would make a mental note to inflict on a slave world in order to see if he was into it or not.

  "I demand you remove them!" the literal slug said, and Aldus instantly recoiled back from it, his face twisted in utter disgust. It's round, strangely mesmerizing eyes, it's bizarre, sluggy mouth masticating the words out. He hadn't had an emotion this intense in millennia, and he swore he would make the slave world experiment his top priority once this was all over with.

  "I will not!" Aldus was already in full politician mode, which is to say that he was willing to put forth more effort than any being had ever put forth in order to avoid doing anything at all.

  "Great, this one's naked too," the crystal man said, staring at Aldus Divine's divine bod. Aldus immediately assumed a power pose, one which accentuated everything which should never be accentuated.

  "Greetings, System Administrator," the skeleton said in a diplomatic, pleasant voice. A weak voice, in other words, "We are the leaders of the Signatory Races."

  "[System Ray!]" Aldus shouted, blasting them once more. He figured they'd had some kind of miraculous, one time use defense against his unbeatable attack, and that it would work this time, "IT ALWAYS WORKS!" he shouted out of pure habit, but once again, he was left disappointed. "Greetings, I am President Aldus Divine," he said, shifting so fast that it was difficult to remember he'd just gone for broke on murdering them, "how can I h-" his jaw did the space elf equivalent of a meth mouth side to side, "elp you?"

  "Get them out!" the slug screamed again, and then began slugging his way all around the office, leaving a trail of clear, thick slime behind, "I disrespect you with slime! With slime!"

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  "Aeon Slugs," the crystal man said, "they never change."

  "As per the lease agreement between the signatory parties, the entity known as (((The System))), signed on-" Blah blah blah Aldus had already tuned out the skeleton as it launched into a lengthy legal description. Of the three, only the crystal man seemed to have any brains at all. Aldus gave him a look.

  "Sorry bud," he said, cutting off the skeleton, "we've got a problem with your system, so our problem, is your problem."

  "What's your problem?" Aldus said, doing his best to ignore the nagging feeling that somehow he was responsible for everything happening to him.

  "Our problem!" the slug said, slugging over to Aldus and poking him with a huge eye stalk. The sensation was like getting punched by a sponge filled with dense jelly, "is that our reality has collapsed over fifty times since one of you imbeciles decided to introduce humans into our world!"

  "Yes," the skeleton said, cutting off his recitation of some contractual terms, "the College's department of chronomancy and planomancy have lost several extremely delicate apparati. They were designed to survive the occasional reality collapse, but fifty-seven times is simply unprecedented-"

  "My garden is ruined!" the slug shouted, "the BIG SLUGS ARE STARTING TO ASK QUESTIONS!"

  "What does that mean," Aldus whispered to the crystal man.

  "Work," he whispered back, and both of them knew exactly what that word meant, and how important it was to avoid it.

  "-which is why we have come here," the skeleton said, "you are the one holding the leash of (((The System))), and thus, you are responsible for dealing with this problem."

  "You all look like capable. . ." Aldus reached for his most polite word for Non Space Elves, "things, you can deal with this yourself."

  "Actually, you, can deal with it," the crystal man said, draping a burning hot arm around Aldus's flesh with a sizzle. Aldus didn't scream, he was a Space Elf. This level of sensation was barely registering to him, "otherwise, you lose (((The System))).

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  --

  Aldus Divine was standing at the very, very rarely used President for Life official podium, which was emblazoned with the official crest of office, which I will NOT describe, because it is a symbol that Space Elves respect, which perceptive readers should interpret as Not Safe For Work Or Anywhere At All. NSFWAAA, pronounced "Ennis-Fwaaaah", the Space Elf word for 'Pleasant' or 'Very Good'.

  He began his speech by ripping a line of Space Cocaine from the back of a slave, as was customary, and began speaking, addressing his entire galactic civilization. Trillions of space elves across millions and millions of worlds.

  "We all love watching (((The System)))," Aldus said, staring manically into the Space Elf equivalent of a news camera, "I love it, you love it, we all love it. So we're having a draft," he continued, getting straight into it, "one Elf from every world, to be precise, will be chosen to enter (((The System))), your best elf. Their victory is your victory, riches and slaves and favors will be showered upon worlds with a champion who succeeds!" Aldus smiled a beautiful smile of genuine joy, which was the most awful of all his awful smiles, "and their failure? Ah ha! Yes, it will result in the execution of the entire planet that dared to send me a fool. You may, if you like, send more than one champion. But when all of your champions are dead, all of you will be as well. Your empire needs you, answer the call."

  --

  "Mistakes have been made," The System said. He stood tall and proud, gigantic Legend-esque devil horns coming off of his gigantic red devil head, his cloven feet clacking on the floor of the corporate office room. The System, who was quite definitely not the devil, was in charge. The head honcho. The CEO. The Boss. There was nothing so bosslike as exploiting a massive powergap, and there was no power gap so massive as the one between The Boss, and The Intern(s).

  They were also The System, but rather than confident, towering, black suited devils, they were cowering, shaking, button-up shirt, clueless devils, who'd just gotten this job because someone in their extended System family had really stuck their neck out for them, and these intern spots were highly competitive, and now the CEO of The System had them captive in a room-

  "Mistakes," The System CEO grinned, cutting through the tension in the room, "happen. Remember that bit where gremlins took magic mushrooms and bypassed all of our safeguards to gain access to The Beyond?"

  "I just started here yesterday," a System Intern said, his voice exactly the same as the System CEO's voice.

  "An entire department was quaking with fear," The System CEO continued, "Oh No the universe is in peril!" The System CEO said in a mocking false falsetto, prompting a snicker from the assembled interns. "Ah the gremlins oh nooooooo! Did I care? I didn't care one bit, and they only cared, because they'd have lost their jobs if they accidentally destroyed the universe, and only because rebooting it would be a massive pain."

  "We can do that?" an intern asked, and the CEO nodded fondly.

  "We don't like doing that, but yes, we can do that. It's happened before. Mistakes, they happen. Like that time the BIG SLUGS all got together and held down (((THE SYSTEM))) so the rest of their allies could come and beat us up? Mistakes! What a laugh," The System CEO said, and everyone was chuckling. Who could forget that. It was how they'd been coerced into signing an agreement with the denizens of The Plane of Wild Magic in the first place, instead of simply conquoring it.

  "But tell me this," The System CEO said, waving a hand and condensing reality into a floating television screen. On the screen, a tweaked out Space Elf was sitting cross legged in front of The Console Of The System itself, the primordial relic which their species had discovered so long ago, the very object which housed the entire essence of (((THE SYSTEM))) itself. The console, by pure coincidence and following the wonderful logic of reality itself, would have a familiar shape to most Earthlings, as it resembeled, almost eerily so, the greatest game console ever created, the N64, except this one was made from solid black stone and the controller was wireless. Aldus Divine was visibly sweating, like every one of his tiny pores was taking a piss, trembling in sheer unadulterated terror as he used the controller to do something no Space Elf System Administrator had ever done, which was to start browsing the various menus and settings he had access to.

  "This, is a problem."

  Guns, Girls and EXP: Slaves of the Empire is doing (Thank all of you who went and checked it out, seriously, thank you!).

  But for the first time in a long while, I can feel the content for BDA flowing through me, and I'm really happy about that. I love writing this book, it's by far the most fun I have as an author. I was nervous about coming back, but now that I've done it, it's the best decision I've ever made. I love you guys <3.

  GGE and follow it and leave glowing reviews. It's a clean story that, fingers crossed, will do well enough to let me stop working 12 hour shifts at my job, and start writing full time.

  Thank you for listening to my TED talk, Salty OUT