The view screen I used to watch my status showed additional hacking attempts with resulting character stat bonuses. Apparently even offline I could gain points. Though Advance Online didn’t have an autopilot feature so the logic behind that was unexplained.
I didn’t care about the stats. My character coming back online mattered more. Ruby must have knocked me out in order to move us away from Auntie Backstab. In the end, almost twenty-four hours passed. There was no clear display of what was waiting for me in-game, only a note saying my character was available to play once more. That made me happy enough. I skipped the Atrium and ordered my ARC to log straight in.
“Unit Hermes, you’re back online now, is everything functioning correctly?” Treasure’s voice sounded full of exhaustion.
I needed a moment to orient myself. My butt sat comfortably in the driver's seat of our [Wayfarer’s Hope]. Hands went out to feel the dashboard around me for reassurance. I honestly expected to log back in dead with a pile of [Mechanoid] bodies around me, despite my best efforts.
“Are you okay, User Legate?” Jeeves asked with the butler and nanny tones.
I turned around to see our much-enlarged cockpit. Jeeves sat to the back right and seemed to be reading a display. Its screen tracked more than a few targets nearby, but nothing red flashed. Just idle blues and yellows which signaled people who didn’t care about us.
Treasure sat in another spot welding together two objects while sparks sprayed off. She seemed to have turned part of our ship into a workbench like on the [Wayfarer Seven].
“What-” I started to ask. These upgrades to our ship were new to me. Treasure and the others had stayed behind to work on them while I piloted the [Knuckle Dragger]. Finally, I settled for saying, “This is really neat.”
I flicked away a stack of messages telling me how long I had been unaware. Next I brought down a map trying to figure out where we were. Screens popped up on the [Wayfarer’s Hope] showing me roughly what our status was.
“You guys got pretty far,” I said, trying not to think about how they had knocked me out and sacrificed some other [Mechanoid] to do it. All those hours outside the machine gave me time to cope with the guilt. Mostly, sort of.
I took a breath and counted out a four-four rhythm in my head. One foot tapped and tried to reduce the impending stress. Treasure and Jeeves were chatting away and it didn’t make it through my head completely.
“What’s that?” I pointed to a red dot far behind us. It looked like a big bad ship of some sort.
“That would be Captain Backstab. She seems intent upon killing us.”
“What?” I instantly grew alarmed. The idea of that giant wall of angry metal eating meat chasing us sounded terrifying.
“Yes. Her ship has been in rapid pursuit for almost two days.” Treasure poked at something in our ship. Noises beeped and an image came up on my display. It showed a round ball covered in angry spikes. It looked as if someone detached a morning star’s head and put engines on it.
“Voices above. That’s ugly.” I muttered and waved away Auntie Backstab's ship. It turned into a set of calculations off to one side.
Time until [Stabinator] catches up with [Wayfarer’s Hope]:
* 10:31:12
Time until [Wayfarer’s Hope] catches up with [WTS a Spaceship]:
* 12:47:31
Fuel Remaining:
* 00:05:21
All the counters ticked off seconds as I watched in mild horror. We had limited options, our ship was running out of gas, or energy, or power cells. Whatever drove it forth lasted for nearly two days which was far more impressive than the original specifications were.
“This looks bad.” Math problems went through my mind. I started calculating speeds and old school riddles. If the [Stabinator] is going at five hundred space miles per second, and the [Wayfarer’s Hope] is going four hundred, how long before Auntie Backstab tries to eat the [Mechanoid]s?
“It will likely not turn out in our favor, worse still, we will have to stop in a free port. There are no Mechanoid bases in this region.” Treasure said.
Now I understood why she sounded stressed. To be fleeing from that for nearly two days had to be grueling, even to a future robot. To think, I had slept through such torture and even talked to my niece.
My mind tried to come up with solutions based on what we had. I still hadn’t figured out a way to link the two worlds on the go. Maybe if I could figure out our final destination a few of the players from Continue could run over and try to find Commander Strongarm.
“There’s a nebula, I remember seeing. It looked like a skull.” I started talking while getting out of my pilot's seat. Our ship was large enough to have space to walk around in. There were even tables in the back. In a human vessel, they might have been bunks or bathrooms, but [Mechanoid]s had no need for such silly biological devices.
“This one? I recall you staring at it intently.”
“Yes.” It looked impossible to reach with our dwindling resources. Based on these numbers Commander Queenshand would certainly make it to Earth’s solar system before we got to the skull area.
“Was there a reason you wanted to see it?”
“I’m comparing maps.” I muttered while looking at different objects on the screen. Treasure leaned to one side so I could get a better view of her display.
Now that my mind had a better idea of what was happening, portions of this universe seemed to almost mirror William Carver’s world maps. He had been given an explorer title and kept innumerable records of information in his house. I only knew because weeks went by where I studied the scrolls, trying to familiarize myself with a new world and game.
I couldn’t remember all the details. The [Tuu Mountains] had to mimic the [Tuu Quadrant] to the right. It sat right outside of the [Ya-dar Way], a stream of stars that stretched on for miles. Looking at it from this angle revealed all sorts of little connections. Pathways that were the same.
Except Earth. That didn’t ring a bell based on any map of William Carver's. The star system sat far off the edge, which would have gone into the water. Maybe there was an island out there in Continue Online’s world, or maybe I was drawing connections that didn’t make sense.
Space wasn’t flat like a planet’s surface. Well, the analogy didn’t fit perfectly, but it was possible to see how things might differ simply due to the nature of these universes.
“Jeeves.” I turned to the AI behind me.
The edges of its portion of the ship's interior were lined in gold and iron colorings. Jeeves appeared to be absent-mindedly focused on numbers and design specs. One-half of the AIs display was taken up monitoring our surroundings. More yellows and blues slipped by on the screen. Two other small green dots sat almost on top of our marker.
I briefly turned to Treasure's station and noticed that her area consisted of silver and gold, mine of green and dark red rust. “Neat.” I said then shook my head.
“Unit Hermes?” Jeeves looked up at me then back to the screens. “What can I do for you?”
“This.” I paused and took a breath. It was more than a world but less than completely real. “Advance and Continue, they mirror each other, right?”
“Not exactly.” Jeeves paused and look over it’s shoulder at Treasure. She pretended to ignore us but seemed to be twitching in building irritation. “Echo, perhaps, is a better word.”
“How is that possible?” I asked while wrinkling my forehead.
“There are millions of users, the system moves them around as needed. Any major development on one side of the coin can stir in the other. It’s how the system introduces a measure of organized chaos to the reality.”
“So, anything we do here, eventually reaches over there?” My hands gestured to the left and right as if pointing to different games. It helped me straighten out these thoughts bouncing around.
“I believe so. It is difficult for me to access that information now. Were you to ask weeks ago I might have been able to provide a satisfactory answer.” Jeeves said.
“Okay.” I chewed on one lip and thought about it. There were other things to talk about, but we were in a crunch. The countdown timer for fuel showed two minutes left.
I turned and looked at the map again. We were closing in on a location. [Offbeat Point], which didn’t ring a bell but probably echoed something in Continue Online. “We’re headed to that station, right?” I pointed on the map.
“Yes, Unit Hermes.” Treasure nodded and pressed buttons. A rapid-fire description of the city came up. I didn’t read through it, instead trying to figure out how to make everything link together in our favor.
I hoped, desperately hoped, to borrow other players and have them help me block the Commander. Killing people and denizens of this world didn’t feel right at all. Using other players would be considerably less stressful.
“It takes time for things to work correctly. It is doubtful that any actions you request of your contacts would reflect here in time.” The AI seemed to follow my line of reasoning enough to cut it off.
“Darn.” I sighed after being shot down. If the AI was right, then in a day or two it would be too late for us to catch up. Indeed, it was unlikely anyone, even Beth, could interfere in time.
Still, the connect felt a bit clearer and almost too amazing to believe. It sounded like these games, despite their difference in release date, were using player actions in one world to drive events in another. Mother or whatever programming handled this, was cheating by reducing the need to constantly move things forward on its own. There were likely no human programmers out there making new content, but one set of players bouncing around the other.
That sounded neat too. Maybe, it was a vague idea of how the whole system went together.
“Jeeves? Has anyone else ever noticed the connection between games?” I asked.
“I believe, among the old souls, you are the first to vocalize their awareness of it.” The AI didn’t shrug or dismiss my question. Jeeves turned in the seat and looked right at me. Both voices carefully speaking. “Plus your own affiliations make this less of a guarded secret.”
“Neat.” I tried not to freak out about the possible repercussions of what the AI implied. It made sense that people investing so much in a single alter ego would be unlikely to let it go. Continue Online seemed vast despite the months I had put into it. Why would anyone give that up?
“What are you two talking about?” Treasure’s golden eyebrows lowered in a very [Mechanoid] glare. I tried not to smile in amusement
“The nature of existence.” I raised one hand in a shrug. There would be no easy way to explain things, and we shouldn’t really have been talking about it in-game anyway.
“Indeed.” Jeeves sounded depressingly dry and stared at me.
Technically this whole line of conversation was my fault. There was just no good way of getting answers fast enough, maybe we could have communicated through a party system. I was terrible at making it work though.
“I’ll let you handle explaining it, Jeeves, I’m not sure what the rules are for a lot of this.” I went back to my seat while thinking about forum posts. People had tried to explain the concept of a video game world to NPCs and it often went poorly. Their game avatars ordinarily suffered. The program controlling Advance Online seemed to heavily discourage such reality breaking conversation.
Beth and I had once discussed the same topic, she suggested there were punishments for speaking too much about the nature of reality. She hadn’t experienced any first hand, it was more like tribal knowledge. Speaking about the world outside an ARC needed to be done carefully and very vaguely.
I had skirted the real world quite a few times, especially when talking to the Voices. Mostly it involved introducing a new idea, casinos, cupcakes, bicycles, or Xin. They were a separate existence from normal nonplayer characters.
There was a rumor someone had tried to replicate the nuke only to have their entire town blown up and lose a ton of [Respect], gained a bounty on their heads, and spent the next four months being hunted. If that person didn’t up and quit to play Advance, then maybe I truly was the first to make these connections.
The two [Mechanoid]s were talking as our ship pulled into a giant space station. My brain quickly lost track of it’s musings and stared in awe. This place made both Wayfarer ships look dinky.
“Neat.” My hand pressed against the window. Cold metals pushed back and the display rippled. Part of me hadn’t realized my entire view of space was actually a projected image. I pulled back a bit and went back to feeling dwarfed by a floating space station.
It sat there rotating in space, tube-shaped, long. Ships parked on the outside, but inside could be seen an atmosphere. Plants grew in huge droves. Browns, greens, and blues littered the entire place in what had to be a natural forest. [Offbeat Point] was not an out of the way place, it was almost a state unto itself.
“We’re just grabbing fuel and going right?” I held more than a hint of wonder. Our vessel had taken a path towards the outside cylinders edge. My head twisted around trying to get a view on the rapidly vanishing country inside.
“No. We need to pick something up as well.”
“That sounds like a bad idea.” I looked at the countdown timer again. Our fuel had less than a minute. Treasure timed this stop very well.
“We need a Jump Gate key to even be allowed into Earth’s sector. Those with Commander Queenshand would have already gained one.” The gold and silver [Mechanoid] pointed at her screen. A brief display came up showing what looked like a small household mortice key. Bronze, rounded on one end, and might fit into a music box just as easily as an old door. It seemed weird that such an object would power advanced space technology to such a historic place.
“But I didn’t.” I said.
“There was no time.” Jeeves said with a sigh. “Like many things, it has been rushed, we had hoped to proceed down a different route in order to assist you.”
“What are you two talking about now?” She closed down all the windows and glared again.
“The nature of reality?” I tried the answer again. This time, Treasure looked downright angry with me. It was the maddest she had ever been in my presence, topping even Dusk’s chewing on her belongings.
My hands went up and I glanced at Jeeves. It looked mildly upset and slightly worried. Guilt rushed through me abruptly. My big mouth and attempts to work the system were causing issues for the AI and its [Mechanoid] crush. Maybe it was conflicted, Hal Pal outside the game had basically told me to use the [NPC Conspiracy] ability if I really just wanted to break things.
I didn’t like that idea. The ability had limited uses and there were probably a million good reasons to hang on to them.
“I don’t know how to answer the question right, Treasure. I am sorry.” I said.
“You’re hiding something.”
“Not really. I’m trying not to get us in trouble with any Seraphic.” Or those above them. I hoped by throwing out the dangerous race's name it might help Treasure realize that higher powers were at work. Much higher, though technically they were intensely advanced AIs that could make humans seem simple.
My mind briefly started trying to compare theoretical lifeforms against each other. Weren’t humans just fancy machines with growing parts? Weren’t our brains a result of lots of stimulus over a long enough time period? The reasoning was silly to even start debating this late in the game
Jeeves felt real. Treasure felt real. Xin, from my brief bits of contact with her, felt real. It hurt to keep going round and round about my former fiancee's reincarnation, but at the same time it felt very human to constantly wonder.
“We’re going to a bar here.” Jeeves said.
“A bar?” That sounded dangerous to me. I tried to avoid pubs. There had been this one letter that the Voices tasked me with delivering, it involved following a player down into some beer nightmare oriented dungeon.
“Affirmative.” The AI nodded and started disengaging from its harness. Treasure followed suit and a rear hatch I hadn’t noticed slid open.
A realization hit me hard enough to cause a metallic face palm moment. Ringing filled my ears. “This is another one of my letters, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That is what I’ve been told.” Jeeves said.
“Are there more?” I followed the other two [Mechanoid]s out of our enlarged vessel. The ship had easily tripled in size and now seemed like a tank compared to the old tiny fighter.
“This is the last one, I believe.” The nanny voice overpowered its butler one and sounded a bit stern.
Dusk leapt down, from only the Voices knew where, and followed Jeeves and I out to the tarmac. The ground felt rubbery against my feet. It struck me as odd that I only now realized [Mechanoid]s didn’t have boots.
There were dozens of other ships pulling in. Some clearly belonged to players. Others were owned by NPCs like Aqua and Ruby. They had disembarked before us, by leaping straight out of their now open cockpits. Both of them sat next to some long pillar object while pressing at floating menu options.
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I raised an eyebrow at them as Treasure, Jeeves, and I passed by. Ruby shook her head back and forth slowly then pointed up to her ship. Aqua just smiled. The gesture probably indicated they were staying to watch our vessels.
I shrugged then turned back to Jeeves to continue our conversation. “But you don’t know if any other letters matter?”
“No, but this isn’t my plan.” The AI was swiftly following Treasure. She clearly had a destination in mind despite not knowing about the Continue Online side of things. Did she talk it over with Jeeves or had the Voices preprogrammed something in? Maybe it went one level higher.
“Who’s is it?” I asked.
“If you reason through, Unit Hermes, I believe you can figure it out.” My AI friend's answer didn’t help me at all. I suspected it was the Voices but had no clear method of finding out without risking repercussions. The only real goal here was getting Xin back by using the [Mistborn], our other mission of saving the [Wayfarer Seven]'s crew had failed, but the [Wayfarer Eight] went home successfully, in theory.
“What are you two talking about?” Treasure demanded with a fresh bout of annoyance. She turned and crossed her arms while glaring at us.
I pointed towards Jeeves. It may be suffering separation from all the other Hal Pal units and growing towards destinations unknown, but my attempts to answer would be disastrous. They managed to exchange absolutely no words on the subject before Treasure sighed and kept going.
I glanced once more at the two behind us. It was good that Ruby and Aqua chose to stay with our weirdly merged vessel. Someone had to protect our oddly designed craft. The ship seemed almost like some child had decided that our three ships needed to merge into a giant spaceship toy. I wondered where the other colors might be, we only needed a green leg and yellow arm to form the set.
The idea made me laugh a little as I hustled to catch up. We walked through the giant space station. There were some floor panels that helped us travel quicker. An entire landscape zipped by rapidly.
Being around all these trees and well-kept lawns made me feel kind of giddy. It had been so long since I played a game with these lush landscapes. Weeks, or a month, it was hard to tell. Once again subjective time was messing me up.
Our destination sat somewhere between a rich and highly cleaned area, and what had to be space slums. Just looking over there made me twitch in annoyance. This wasn’t a poor area like back on Earth, it was downright broken and nothing looked to be made right. Large metal flats sat almost on stilts to serve as roofs.
Players seemed to wander through both areas with ease. We saw all sorts of races represented, and many that were NPC only. A large elephant looking creature walked around on two legs, it’s long nose adorned with piercings. Some double headed jellyfish moved along in clumping movements. Treasure scanned many different objects as we walked around, cataloging notes but not really enjoying the process. There were no other [Mechanoid]s so far.
The bar’s name was [Isn’t That Something?]. Apparently it was player owned and primarily run by hired staff. An absolutely giant human by the name of SuperE sat at the door. He eyed the trio of robots, and one excited [Messenger’s Pet] for a moment before moving on.
“There he is.” Jeeves pointed towards a rather round looking man. This was a player, that much was easy to tell.
“Okay. Is there anything to this?” I asked. Maybe one day the game would give me an [Identification] skill so player names would be obvious. The ability to pull down more than a health bar seemed restricted to certain classes.
“We simply try to get the key from him.”
“Are you sure he has it?” I raised an eyebrow. This guy didn’t look like he had much of anything besides excessive amounts of liquor. It was a state that rung a bell from my past health issues. After Xin’s passing and before counseling.
“Yes. This player is named Eggman. The original key was gained by him through a quest, and his teammates took it one night. We’re lucky he is a decryptor and made a backup. Eggman has since quit his guild but still hangs around this bar.” Jeeves listed off a bunch of things that could only have come from outside the game or some special connection with the program. Maybe the Hal Pal consortium was still feeding information in.
“So we’re against his-” I paused to catch up on all the words. “-former guild?”
“Affirmative, Unit Hermes.” Jeeves nodded. “Some of them. It is a local group that only operates out of the immediate area.”
“Are there a lot of more of them? Others that might be against us, or with us?” I asked in hopes that there was an angle to play there. Either it would be good, bad, or keep us right where we were.
“No, all other guild members are aboard the ship. There is hope that his falling out with the other players allows for favorable negotiations. This solution offers the highest chance of success.”
“Suggestions on how to convince him?”
Jeeves didn’t have an answer. Treasure seemed more intent on scanning any object in our surrounds, inanimate or not. More than one player got hit by the device around her wrist. Once they noticed the metal woman they often blinked a few times then smiled. It seemed looks transcended race around here.
“If you want something from Eggman, your best bet is to clear his bar tab.” The large white human had moved from the doorway to right behind us. I didn’t like that he was bigger than me, or sneakier, especially after the extra bulk I had purchased. Iron being a size up made sense, humans did not.
Despite my distaste, the man's idea might be valuable. I considered what was available to trade but found that my time about either Wayfarer hadn’t left me with much. Unless contribution was considered valid currency in the universe. The signs with drink prices above the bar counter seemed to indicate otherwise.
“I don’t have money.” I tried to whisper to Jeeves but didn’t use the [Mechanoid] method of digital communication. It was still difficult for me to trigger right.
“There’s another option.” SuperE suggested.
“Okay?” I responded.
SuperE lead us to a side exit to the bar. The large doorway pointed directly towards the poor part of town. Metal roofs were haphazardly placed all over. “That’s the slums, I toss the rowdy ones out there and see who gets the most distance. If you can beat my score, I’ll pay off some of his tab, If you can’t, you give me that little critter as compensation.”
Dusk hissed at the large human from his shoulder perch. I raised a metal hand up and rubbed the [Messenger’s Pet] soothingly.
“Yeah. He’ll make a good mascot. I’ve been looking for something unique for the bar.” The white skinned man nodded then folded giant beefy arms across his chest.
“Who am I throwing?” I asked, trying to get a feel for my chances.
“Don’t care.”
“So, any random person, out there?” My words were aimed at making sure our wager would be completely clear. It still seemed like a bad idea. Jeeves kept its face passive and Treasure was busy elsewhere.
“You throw someone, out there, one chance, his bar tab versus your lizard.” SuperE pointed. It annoyed me watching his giant finger direct my attention from one object to the next in time with the reiteration.
All sorts of people were in the room. Different races, players, and NPCs of all types. There was no concise way to gauge who could be thrown the furthest. Plus all the NPCs were out, they might actually die from that kind of distance. Assuming I found a way to put my all into.
“What do you think, Dusk?” I had no idea what would happen. The bet seemed ridiculous to even consider. Eventually, my head just shook. “No, I can’t part with him.”
Dusk made a weirdly combined bird cat noise. It sounded happy but came out like a garble.
“Then I throw you.” SuperE suddenly grabbed me.
I barely had time to blink, his hands were extremely powerful and it felt like my shoulder was being crushed. Hurriedly I activated [Power Armor]. The man grunted a little as my skin toughened up by a layer of armor defining itself all over my surface. It didn’t stop SuperE from dragging me closer to the door in preparation for tossings.
Both feet tried to find purchase and [Anchor] activated next. The bar floor met a high enough metal concentration that my feet were drawn down. There wasn’t enough purchase. SuperE roared out loud and charged for the doorway. I managed to get an arm loose and grabbed onto more metal framing before he reached throwing speed. The bar counter was my savior. Being on a space station certainly helped for material composition.
Resisting made SuperE start banging on my arm. Pain flared up as his meaty hands managed to deal damage even through the [Power Armor]. His [Brawn] character stat must have been through the roof. We sat there awkwardly deadlocked as he tried to drag me to the door for the tossing. My fingers left dents in the counter top.
There were still a few things to try. I could swing at him with a sword if my hand had been free. The wrist laser arm was currently being crushed. I tried to activate one of my other abilities, one that Iron had given me.
[Material Conversion] went into play with a blast of noise like a microwave going off. Whirring started as it felt like something was being sucked through my hand. The counter lost mass and started giving way. At the same time, my body felt heavier by far. The energy bar on my screen started dropping, not only from abilities being used but the maximum size was also going down.
I stared at a message in confusion.
[Material Conversion]
Details: This ability converts compatible metals to body mass. Due to the increased energy requirements for maintaining a larger body your [Core] will be unable to spare as much. Increased body size will provide temporary boosts to [Brawn] and [Toughness].
Soon I was nearly double my original mass. The metal muscles I had been so proud of seemed to swell to bursting. I felt like every bad workout video gone wrong. My chest felt like it had comically sized boobs that were clearly solid. Either arm became like tree trunks.
I, I was honestly kind of afraid to see what this swollen version of me might look like. A steroid user gone absurdly wrong. Being in a [Mechanoid] body with this couldn’t be good.
SuperE was yelling with effort. People around the bar were torn equally between laughing, shouting, and drunken stupor. I didn’t know what to do in order to end this nonsense. The tall white human that had suggested a tossing contest was starting to level a real weapon in my direction.
Finally, it occurred to me that maybe turnabout was fair play. My body had grown almost triple its normal size in exchange for an empty energy bar. The floor was missing mass, and a once dingy bar counter now comprised random parts of my [Mechanoid] body.
I put it all to good use by reversing our situation. SuperE fit almost comfortably into both hands. Enough of the wall was missing that I could hurl him straight through the air. I had aimed for the second star on the right but settled for sending the player off towards slum parts unknown to me.
“What? NOoo, fuuuuuuckkkk!” He shouted while sailing through the air. His parting curse was sufficiently odd for me to tilt my head and wonder what had just happened.
My eyes drifted down towards an absurdly muscled arm that could probably crush Jeeves' head with one squeeze. Treasure looked even smaller than before and was now rapidly scanning my body instead of the bar patrons. She seemed to be trying to hold back laughter while looking at the display on her side.
“Hehehe.” A male giggled from behind me.
I was huffing from the rush of throwing the human so far. In the distance, metal roofs fell down in clatters. A crater could be seen from SuperE’s landing. People behind me were clapping.
My body shook. Between [Anchor], [Power Armor] and the restrictions of a body this size I had burned through everything in a mere forty seconds. Still, that was simply the neatest thing I had done all day. Throwing another player an absurd distance away felt great.
New Contender: Hermes
Subject of Tossing: SuperE
Distance: 328 yards
According to that measurement, politely provided by Advance Online’s oddly timed interface, I had thrown SuperE three football fields and change. That sort of distance was bonkers. Of course, I was a twenty-foot tall man made of metal borrowed from one of the walls. Low gravity on this space station might have helped.
“Unit Hermes. I would suggest releasing all the extra mass. Treasure and I can try to repair the door while you talk to Eggman.” Jeeves offered a ready solution to my recent destruction to part of this building. We were all lucky my absorption skill hadn’t pulled enough mass to suck everyone into space.
I nodded and concentrated on releasing the skill. It felt like unclenching every muscle in my body. The glowing rust color to my [Mechanoid] body started to dim as my size decreased. Fifteen feet, then ten, and finally back to the seven-foot marker my character existed at.
Jeeves started working right away. I vaguely remembered it having a title of Pattern Smith or something similar. Those two were likely very well equipped to take care of exactly this sort of problem.
Metal pooled around my feet from a melting second skin. Some people were still clapping. I turned to Eggman and stepped away from the mess left behind.
“We need the key to Earth, to recover the Mistborn and stop some former colleagues of yours.”
“Oh really, really, really?” Eggman’s voice was high-pitched with excitement.
“Yes.” I tried to stay calm, but my body was still recovering from that recent bout.
“Yeah. I’ll go with you, I really will. But you’ve got to let me punch those assholes in the face, really. They knocked me out, stole my items, and left. It would really serve them right to suffer a bit of revenge.” Eggman nodded. The man would have looked good with a mustache, sort of. Having a third chin jutting out might have required a less form fitting shirt, or maybe a hat to help even things out. Instead, he had goggles much like TheLittleMan had.
“Yes, for vengeance.” I tried to play along, but my mind was elsewhere. This player wanted to abruptly join our crew? How weird was that? Plus he looked remarkably out of shape, worse than even I was months ago. Eggman was both a description and character name, for a human.
Nevermind, this was a video game world. He could be extremely agile for all I knew.
“Jeeves? What do you think?” I asked. The AI shrugged, Treasure didn’t seem to care one way or the other. There had to be someone else who might be able to give input. In these sort of dire straits, I couldn’t be sure how trustful other players were.
Grant Legate: Hey, Munchkin, quick quest question.
Elizabeth Legate: Are you going to ask me about that cartoon character you’re standing next to?
Grant Legate: Uhhh....yes. Are you and Liz watching?
Elizabeth Legate: Sure are. It’s better than a movie. She may not be on board with the whole situation, but it doesn’t mean she’ll turn down a chance to watch her brother be a hero, or bite the dust, whatever. :) [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/smile.png]
Grant Legate: Thanks, I didn’t have enough pressure before. Anyway, this other player, do you think I should trust him?
Elizabeth Legate: Worst case, you fail the quest, personally I’d go for it. Having an extra set of arms around helps.
There were a lot of things to consider about my conversation with Beth. First was the fact that my sister was on board enough to treat my adventure like a movie. That was either hopefully, or she had finally started paying attention to more than just the letter from Xin. The two of them might be eating popcorn and making a list of things to harass me about. Once my admin access came back they would be blocked. For now, I was thankful that [Mechanoid]s didn’t come with genitals.
“Okay.” I nodded to the player, Eggman. “But you need your own ship.”
“No problem.” responded Eggman. He looked a bit like a mad scientist in that get up of his. I was probably the crazy one for inviting a stranger along on a mission to rescue my dead fiancee's digital ghost.