Jack Of Arts

October 18, 2013 – 11 pm, Friday – Manhattan Center, New York, NY

"That was us. Good night!" Tayaw strums his string one last time for the night.

*APPLAUSE* *APPLAUSE* The packed 2,200 capacity Hammerstein Ballroom erupts into cheers and applause as Tayaw leave the stage with his slick black electric guitar.

*CL.A.P~* *CL.A.P~* *CL.A.P~* The crowd however start clapping rhythmically, in unison, hoping that Tayaw will come back to the stage for a second Encore. 

The band members, already familiar with the scene, urge one of their members to do something.

"Hello. Sorry everyone. Isaac has already played for almost two hours. Let's let him rest. We also love to play more, but we're exhausted." A member of the backing band addresses the crowd.

"Even if we can play more, we're already thirty minutes over-time." She says.

*BOOO* *GROANS* The crowd express their dissatisfaction but they understand nonetheless. 

-Backstage-

"Great show."

"I'm glad you loved it. Thank you for coming." 

Like every show, the tour organizers have chosen tens of front row crowd members to bring backstage to have a meet and greet with Tayaw. The organizers are having the show attendees line-up in a queue while Tayaw goes to each of them for a handshake or a simple exchange of compliments.

"Oh. Here are my CDs. Makes the tickets worth it."

"Oh! Thanks man! I can't find these anywhere!"

"That's because I don't sell them."

There is also a staff member following Tayaw carrying a sack containing the CD copies of Tayaw's country album 'On The Road', and his latest album '19'. Each fan that Tayaw is done talking to, receives CDs. 

"Hey Isaac. Can you sign my shirt too?"

"Hey Isaac. Can you sign my cap?"

"Hey Isaac. Can you sign my guitar?" 

These fans are pretty much amicable and are satisfied with a few handshakes and small favors but on rare occasions, there are very passionate fans. 

"*sniff* *Sniff* Isaac! I love you!" A young female fan in tears cannot stop herself from throwing herself to Tayaw for a hug once it's her turn to talk to Tayaw.

"Miss. You can't do that." A few guards around following Tayaw are about to pry the young lady from Tayaw when Tayaw gestured them not to.

"Okay.. Okay.. Nice to meet you… But please, let go, or else I'll get mobbed. You wouldn't want that, would you?" Tayaw whispers to the lady.

"Okay~." The young lady, despite not understanding entirely what Tayaw said, lets go, hypnotized by Tayaw's whisper.

"Hey. Did you enjoy the show."

"Oh. Very much! Why don't you uh… call me later?"

"Uhhh.. okay…" Tayaw can handle the passionate fans like the young lady, well.

The people he is still uncomfortable dealing with however, are the ones who offer their 'company' by slipping slips of paper containing their phone numbers, in his pocket. He experienced it often in his previous life from the lady fans of Percussive Corrections but compared to then, his fame now attracts more. The best thing he can think of is to just give the ladies a vague reply. 

A few fans later.

"…" Tayaw is speechless as he recognizes his next 'fan'.

"HEY~ ISAAC!" Payew who was incidentally chosen by the organizers, exaggeratedly greets Tayaw as he gives a bear hug.

This startles the guards behind Tayaw and they get ready for action before Tayaw's reaction confuses them.

"LET GO MAN! WHAT THE F.U.C.K!? AHAHAHAHAHA" Tayaw laughs uncontrollably as Payew tickles him during the hug.

The other fans also look on confused not understanding the Teungebian spoken by both young men.

"Okay… Shit. Nice show by the way. And the place is packed! I knew you have hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, but I didn't actually think they'd show up!" Payew finally lets go as he expresses his surprise.

"Yeah. At first, I thought they're just numbers, but I didn't think they'd actually convert easy to ticket sales. Every show, but one is sold out. It's incredible." Tayaw says, giving Payew a fist bump.

The two's familiarity with each other calms the guards down. 

It has been 48 days since Tayaw started his tour of America. 48 days, 8 states, 16 major cities, 32 sold out shows, and 38,000 tickets sold.

"Alright. I'll come visit you tomorrow. I still have two more shows in town." Tayaw cuts down their interaction as he has plenty of time to spend with Payew.

"That's great." Payew nods and with that Tayaw moves to the next fan.

"Thank you for coming. Here's your CDs." The staff offers Payew.

"No thank you. I already have them." Payew refuses the CDs, which confuses the other fans. 

~

After the meet and greet, Tayaw heads back to his camper van outside at the parking lot with the security guards.

Unlike Bart, Angela, the backing band, and the other staff sharing three tour buses, Tayaw decided to hire a smaller trailer van just for himself. He received many strange gazes from that, but once they found out that everything comes out of Tayaw's pockets, they become thankful. 

"So… How many this time?" Bart who has been waiting for Tayaw by the camper van, asks.

"Lost count." Tayaw smugly says.

"That many, huh?" Bart scoffs, not surprised at all.

"Yeah… I bet you got some too, huh." Tayaw says.

"Three." Bart says.

"Not gonna call one of them?" Tayaw asks.

"Nah. I'm a good Christian boy with a loving Christian girlfriend. How about you? What's your excuse for not calling back at least one? You have a van of your own. *wink* *wink*" Bart asks.

"Tired. Got better things to do. Rest." Tayaw explains shortly.

"So.. what do you really need?" Tayaw asks, knowing that Bart will simply not approach him unless it is important, or if Bart invites him for a drink.

"I just finished writing a song this morning. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it." Bart says, excited.

"Not worried I'll steal it?" Tayaw says as he opens the van's door.

"You're the last guy to steal songs. Come on." Bart shrugs.

"Alright. Come on in. Let's talk while we drive to the lot." Tayaw invites Bart in the van. 

~

"Thanks Isaac. I'll try using what you suggested." Bart finally bids his goodbye after an hour of talking with Tayaw about his song.

"Alright. Here. Go find a hotel or something. We'll be here two more days anyway." Tayaw gives Bart a few hundred-dollar bills.

"…" Bart is dumbfounded and stares at Tayaw not knowing what to say.

"Oh cool it. You deserve it. You're doing a great job opening. I also gave a bonus to Angela. She must be in a massage spa right now. You too should relax. I know that your bus is comfy, but six weeks in it is not healthy." Tayaw says.

"Well. Thank you then." Bart says, gratefully before leaving the van to return to his bus. 

"…"

Tayaw finally alone, he opens his laptop to work on something.

Before Tayaw can open Unity Engine, he realizes something. 

"Oh… I was done this morning."

Ever since the tour started, Tayaw has not only been busy arranging his songs and practicing with his backing band, he also began reproducing the first five video games he received from the void.

The final game he finished recreating, being the most difficult one, is 'Super Nerio Brothers' and already created versions of it for existing handheld game consoles.

"So… what now?" Tayaw is lost at what to do.

"Well. I'll release them once the tour's over… Meanwhile… Having fun isn't a bad idea." Tayaw decides and he enters the white void.

Upon entering, he immediately picks up the arcade controller to play a game.

"… Hmmm. Auto Theft Grand III sounds fun." After the hologram display boots up,

Tayaw chooses the game. *sssks* The white arcade controller transforms into a white computer keyboard and mouse. 

Since the exchange system in the void changed from the giant roulette to the giant record store, his view points once again start re-filling at an average of 3 million a day. Tayaw figures that a majority of it comes from the views of 'Gold, Blood, and The Deer' and his songs which includes the one from his albums and the ones in the soundtracks of the other films he worked on. The rest of the View Points he guesses, perhaps come from 'The Ruler's Ring, Companionship of the Nine' and the rest of the stuff he released. 

When the second week of October came, his View Points climbed up to a hundred million again so he decided to buy more stuff from Kim at the 'record store'.

This includes more modern games like the Auto Theft Grand series and some fighting games for a few million View Points. He passed on sports games as there are plenty of it in his world.

The white void also made the original arcade machine that only allowed him to play basic 2d games like Quad Blocks and The Super Nerio Brothers, into something that transforms into more powerful game consoles and computers, as if allowing Tayaw to play the more modern games that he bought.   

A few minutes of playing later, "… Too bad I can't take this thing outside…" Tayaw sighs regretfully as he turns off the arcade machine.

"While I make two to three million View Points a day, it's still a waste spending them on playing."

Tayaw feels a bit indignant that the void charges more View Points per minute of playing the arcade machine than what it charges Tayaw for practicing guitar from Earl Thompson's guitar, or practicing drawing and writing from Dolan Nungo's fountain pen.

"What now… I've passed time here but not on the outside world." Tayaw thinks to himself how to pass time while he waits for the void to kick him out instead of him leaving with his will. 

"Wait… Let's see that…" An idea pops up in Tayaw's head and he immediately leaves the white void.

Returning to the real world, Tayaw immediately looks up on the internet what it takes to make or even own what he is thinking about.

A few minutes later…

"Nah. Too difficult. Requires a LOT of experts to make… I wonder if they will even sell it to me. Can I even afford it?" Tayaw shakes his head.

"Unless…" Another idea pops up in his mind.

"I mean… It's possible, right? The stuff the void gave me is all about arts and entertainment. It even gave me superhuman abilities… Alright… Maybe Kim has it." Tayaw enters the void once again and heads immediately to the 'Record Shop'.

"Hey Kim. How are you today?" Tayaw asks as he enters the 'Record Shop'.

"Boring. Our store has many things, but only you can afford them." Kim says.

"…" Tayaw already figured out long ago that the white void made Kim think she is working at an actual store.

"Anyways… Do you sell game engines?" Tayaw asks.

"Game engines?" Kim ponders for a second.

"YES! We do!" Kim says proudly.

"You do? How much?" Tayaw asks excitedly.

"We have a couple actually. They range from 100,000 points to 100,000,000 Points!" Kim says.

"WHAT?!" Tayaw is almost floored.

"Well. You can buy the cheapest one." Kim says.

"Why so expensive... Peter McKinsey's artist record is 100,000,000…" Tayaw ponders.

"I dunno." Kim overhears him and simply shrugs.

"Alright. Is there something that I can buy for 40,000,000 Points?" Tayaw asks for the price basing on the amount he can comfortably part with.

"Yes… But do you have Advanced 3d Game Development skills? If you don't, I can't sell it." Kim says.

"I don't. How much is that?" Tayaw asks, understanding that he needs the skills to use the game engine.

"10,000,000 Points." Kim says. Tayaw's eyes widen at the price.

"Okay. I'll buy the game engine knowledge plus the advanced 3d game development skills." Tayaw clenches his teeth.

"But I can't sell Advanced 3d Game Development skills without Intermediate 3d Game Development Skills, Foundations of 3d Game Development skills, and Intermediate 2d Game Development Skills." Kim spouts a mouthful.

Tayaw has become numb at this, allowing himself to find a possible reason.

'I knew it. No wonder the best game engines require a LOT of experts to make. And maybe the white void won't let me make a game engine without knowing how to make games with it.' Tayaw sighs in acceptance.

"Alright. How much are those in total?" Tayaw asks.

"62,500,000 points." Kim quickly totals.

"*sigh* I'll take them. You cut me in half today, Kim." Tayaw says in defeat.

"It's my p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e." Kim smiles with her usual customer service smile.

Kim then raises her hand and opens it palm up. Tayaw has witnessed the gesture before and so he waits in anticipation.

Soon, ball of light appears on Kim's palm before shortly disappearing, revealing a stack of records.