How does one sell a product to someone?
A question nearly as old as trade itself. A question that is still being asked today.
From the ancient era to the classical, medieval to renaissance, and industrial to now, in multiple forms, the humans have asked it. And in places they could not reach or see, just like them, many a foreign being have been asking that same question as well.
In this particular instance, a young alien woman serving in a small colonization branch of an intergalactic empire came up with her own answer to the question.
Infomercials. She’d sell what amounted to an apocalypse in a box through an infomercial.
It was a success, of course, but she couldn’t have possibly imagined the consequences of the random chance that fell upon her. That she, in this small corner of existence, would stumble upon such great trouble for her and her superiors.
Perhaps, she should have known better considering all her preparatory studies of Earth’s culture. She was dealing with humans, after all, and humans always came with trouble.
===
Gamify Golding Branch Headquarters
"Alpha-10, Sir," the young Epsilon addressed her superior.
"What is it, 10-Epsilon?"
"Beta-42 has been successfully activated."
"Excellent.” Alpha-10 showed her a smile. He was honestly surprised that this infomercial scheme of hers had actually worked. Perhaps he could assume that she was more in touch with the sensibilities of the humans than he was.
“It'll be something good to report at the next meeting," he continued. Department 10 was in charge of outlier user acquisition and management. Since system expansion worked best through local users rather than imports, it was worth it for them to go into areas with low densities of eligible beta testers to find potential candidates.
In comparison to Department 9, any successful acquisition from them would be considered a major victory.
10-Epsilon tapped the side of her skull. They all had their notifications set to open by gesture so as not to create confusion in the office and this was her chosen sign.
Alpha-10 couldn’t see the notification she got himself, but he definitely saw the look of shock painted upon the young Epsilon’s face upon reading it.
“What is it, 10-Epsilon?” he asked.
"Sir, the system has just reported Beta-42’s primary affinity…”
“Forward it to me,” he told her. She would have already said it if it was something she was at the liberty to say out loud. Few present fully supported High Command’s cause. Even amongst the Alphas, he believed that only two or three could say so under oath and both he and the Overseer knew that he could not.
The forwarded notification popped up before Alpha-10’s eyes and he grabbed his chin—his own personal gesture—to open it.
Beta-42
Affinity: Dimensional
Database Analysis
Affinity Tier: World Ender
World Ender tier affinity detected!
Alert High Command immediately!
His eyes went wide. A natural dimensional affinity? Out of all the branches on this world, they were the ones to awaken something so rare?
“Krae-Ator,” he whispered under his breath.
“Sir?”
“It means the greatest joy,” he said. It was actually a swear in his native tongue.
“What should we do?” 10-Epsilon asked. As the direct manager of Beta-42, she’d obviously received the same report and notifications as he had.
What should we do, Alpha-10 thought with a mocking tone. He was perhaps a bit ticked off that she had brought such a problem upon him. The Department of Outlier Acquisition in every branch was known as the department of slackers and he had indeed taken this position with intention to slack at High Command’s expense.
Yet here this young Epsilon was trying her hardest. It was actually an appealing trait of hers up until this point. Now that they were in this situation, however…
He closed the notification in front of him. “Postpone our other recruitment endeavors in the area for the time being and focus on keeping him engaged.” Dangerous or not, dimensional skills had the potential to leak far more mana than most other skills. Mana leaks would speed up system integration and that’s exactly what the Overseer wanted the most.
“Things will be fine if he stays at or above the standard user target on the projected progression models, but if he ends up falling off at any point in the first week, I want you to immediately follow the protocols for increasing user engagement through increased incentives."
"Yes, Sir." The young Epsilon gave him a salute before returning to her station. Alpha-10 stayed where he was standing. There was no way he was going to report to High Command directly with how much he hated them, but he’d have to get news to the Overseer right away.
World Ender Affinity, he thought. He pitied the ones who had such a dangerous starting affinity. Other users had more choices, but for people with those, the only two options were to grow strong or die.
===
Outside the Guest Bathroom’s Instance
As soon as Jake finished the tutorials and set foot into the bathroom’s instance another notification appeared before him.
Rare Condition!
Due to the outstanding cleanliness of this bathroom instance, filth-based slimes will be replaced by rare Gel Slimes.
Set me free! Jake shouted within the prison that was his own mind. Ten thousand years of tutorials, yet you still make me suffer?
In reality, it had only been ten minutes. Most of that time hadn’t even gone to the actual tutorial. Jake had spent most of it getting his wrist brain to confirm that he wasn’t walking into a death trap.
He closed the rare condition notification and immediately, another message rushed in to take its place.
New Quest
Founder’s Quest 1 - Prelude
Something is afoot in your domain. Investigate the guest bathroom and find any intruders.
Reward: The next part of the quest.
Failure: The sewers below will overflow with filth and become more dangerous.
Perfect… Jake thought. One step into the instance and it was already threatening to ruin the plumbing. If he had set it up in his closet would it have given him a bomb threat?
Jake reached out with his foot and kicked around, but didn’t hit the cabinet under the sink. Just as the tutorial had said, what he saw was fully walkable.
Without fear of running face first into a wall, Jake walked halfway down the forty-foot long corridor, footsteps echoing along the way. He stopped at a door with a label that said it led to the sink. Judging from that, he guessed that the door at the end of the hallway led to the toilet.
Jake opened the door in front of him to a gray stairwell with a couple flights of stairs going up and a couple more going down.
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“Heads or tails?” Jake asked his wrist brain.
Heads Up!
Tails
“Down it is.”
Jake’s work boots thunked against the concrete steps of the stair well as he descended. Behind the door at the bottom, he found a dark room.
Warning!
There are many monsters that lurk in the dark.
Jake turned on his phone’s flashlight and shined it around. Like one would expect from a cabinet under a sink, the room had a drain pipe sticking out of the middle of the ceiling that bent part of the way down and connected to the wall on the opposite side from the entrance.
There were a few rows of shelves standing in the room, but from what he could tell the shelves were mostly empty besides for cleaning products and way too many cans of bug spray.
Rather than looking for an invader, Jake stepped into the room and started looking for supplies. He had checked his equipment during the tutorial and he wasn’t sure if his main weapon being ‘These Hands’ would cut it for whatever he ended up encountering.
When he got near one of the cans of bug spray a question mark popped up next to it. He reached out and clicked it and an item description appeared in front of him.
Insecticide Spray
Spray Type: Mist
Releases a poisonous mist that deals minor poison damage and has a chance to cause varying degrees of paralysis.
Chances of paralysis increase for species that breathe through their skin.
Ex. Ants and Spiders
Jake picked up the can and gave it a quick look. It was the same off brand bug spray his grandmother had bought a ton of from some infomercial bundle. The shelf was stocked with a few cans of the kill on contact stream style bug spray too.
Seeing as he was looking for a more physical weapon option, like a pipe, he put down the can and continued down the aisle. If he couldn’t find something useful, he’d break off a board from one of the shelves and use that.
It didn’t even take ten seconds for something to make him regret putting down the can. Hearing the sound of something skittering along the floor, he turned his phone’s camera light to the end of the aisle.
Jake barely spotted the dog-sized spider with the camera light before it lunged into the darkness towards him. He lost his balance as it smashed into him, then fell onto his back.
In a rapid assault he could barely see, his phone was knocked away. The spider bit down on his face multiple times. He tried to take off his shades, but a warning popped up between him and the spider.
Warning!
For the sake of a more robust gameplay experience, users are not allowed to take off display shades while engaged in combat.
Thanks for telling me that in the tutorial, he thought sarcastically.
Suddenly, two holes appeared in the warning message. Jake felt a warmth on the back of his left eye and realized that the spider had just bitten down on it.
CRITICAL HIT!
New Status Effect!
BLINDED! [Partial, Temporary]
The words popped up towards the bottom left of the void that was now the left side of his field of vision. There was no running, fighting was his only option.
Though the bites were coming in fast, they didn't appear to be doing much damage individually. That gave Jake time to react.
Reaching out into the dark, he managed to grab a couple of the spider's legs and hold it away from himself. When it realized it couldn't reach his face anymore, it started biting at his wrist.
That was fine. Whatever this place was, it numbed pain so he barely even felt it.
Jake stood up and pushed the spider against the ground by the end of its legs. It started kicking the six legs he wasn’t holding around like crazy in a way that was probably gross and terrifying and that Jake was happy that he couldn’t really see in the dark.
All the fighting it was doing didn't matter, Jake had it pinned.
Even faster than it had been biting down on his face, Jake started stomping down on the spider's stomach and didn't stop until it stopped moving and he had gotten a kill notification.
You stomped down on a Really Big Spider!
Enemy: Level 2
By the time it was dead, Jake's eye had recovered from its blinded status effect. Jake focused on the top left of his field of vision for a moment and his general stats came into focus.
Level 1
Health: 134 / 200
Mana: 100 / 100
Lucky for him, the damage he took here was only to his health points. It was something he had confirmed before entering the bathroom. He’d have never stepped in here if he was actually risking a mauled face and a torn wrist. Plumbing be damned.
Jake wiped his brow, then headed over to where his phone’s light was shining against the ground. After he picked it up, he pointed its light towards the spider's corpse. There was a pool of blood under the spider, but it didn’t look like it had dropped any items.
He turned his light to the cans of bug spray. Yeah, gonna need about five of those. He was about to walk over and take a couple before he heard something moving along the shelf behind him.
Jake took off his glasses immediately.
The world warped around him and he felt like his head was spinning for a second, before he was suddenly back in the mundane world. Much to his surprise, he was laid out on his back with his head stuffed in the cabinet under the sink like he was a plumber.
Still feeling disoriented and out of place, Jake reached into his pocket and tried pulling out his phone before realizing it was already laying next to him, shining light into the cabinet. He looked around for any normal spiders under there, but didn't spot any.
Jake pulled his head and his phone out from under the sink and took a second to breathe while thinking of what he should do next. He wasn't one for things like haunted houses or horror games, but somehow getting jump scared and mauled hadn't bothered him so much. In fact, he’d dare to even call it fun.
With the sewers still on the line, Jake wanted to rush back in there and show those spiders who was boss. That said, he wasn't about to let them get the jump on him so easily again.
Jake walked out from the bathroom and over to piles of not so useless things that he had organized from what his grandmother had bought over the years. He came back with a hard hat with a light on it, a few LED light blocks, a metal bat, and a hunting knife with its strap. He set up the LED lights under the sink, stepped back out of the bathroom, put back on his shades, then turned on the light on his hard hat.
When he got back down to the bottom of the stairwell in the bathroom instance, he could see the light bleeding through under the door. It wasn't as clear as day when he opened the door, but there wouldn't be anything jumping out from the dark at him.
Jake eyed the cans of bug spray closest to the entrance, then looked around for any spiders. Of course, there had to be one hiding on a lower shelf between him and the shelf with the bug spray.
He kicked over the spider’s shelf. As soon as it popped out from under it, he started beating down on it with his metal bat.
You beat down on a Really Big Spider!
Enemy: Level 2
Jake picked up four cans of bug spray from the shelves, two of the mist spray type and two of the stream spray type, and said, “Inventory.”
Heads Up!
You don't have any inventory skills unlocked or inventory items equipped.
Should have brought a backpack, Jake thought.
He grabbed a basket he spotted a few shelves down, then went from shelf-to-shelf collecting spray bottles until he had a dozen. After that, he stuffed a can into his left and right pocket.
With the amount of light in the room now, Jake could see that he wouldn’t be getting anything better than his bat in here. He started for the door, but stopped when something fell from the ceiling and splattered on his helmet and shoulder.
Turning his head, he saw that his shoulder was now covered in a clear goo. The goo had a strong smell to it. Something like… rubbing alcohol?
Jake looked up and saw what could be most aptly described as a giant living ball of hand sanitizer stuck to the ceiling. He swung his bat as the slime tried to drop down on him. The slime followed the arc of his bat, slamming into the floor. His bat got lodged more than a foot deep.
I’m going to need a sixth sense with these things, Jake thought. The slime was almost the size of the spider and Jake had little doubt that it could have swallowed it—and himself, up to his waist—whole.
As it reformed itself into a circular shape, it pulled his bat in deeper. Jake let go of his weapon and pulled out a can of the kill on contact bug spray to replace it.
He covered the slime’s surface in a poisonous mist and much to his own surprise, it actually worked. It didn’t die immediately, but the slime shrank.
The slime wobbled like it was about to jump at him, but then froze and started vibrating. The effects of the bug spray had paralyzed it.
Within the slime’s clear gel innards, Jake spotted a crystal. He took out the stream type spray he’d stuffed in his pocket and shot it at the slime. It dug a tunnel through the gel slime and as soon as its stream reached the crystal core, the slime popped.
You dug a poisoned tunnel through a Gel Slime!
Enemy: Level 1
There was a question mark next to the crystal that Jake tapped.
Lv. 1 - Gel Core
Jake picked up the slime core and pocketed it. If this system had monster drops, then there was a good enough chance that it had a crafting system too.
Quest Completed!
Invaders discovered. Assigning next part of Founder’s Quest…
Founder’s Quest 1 - Guest Bathroom
The Gel Slime King has claimed dominion over your toilet and the tiled lands that surround it. Show this upstart what’s what and send him back to the sewers so that he may get back to cleaning the filth below.
Reward
Note: Relevant Bonuses Already Included!
+500 Game Tokens
+$500 U.S Dollars
Note: All completed quests contribute to level progression.
Failure: The sewers below will overflow with filth and become more dangerous.
Jake’s eyes locked onto the most important part of the message.
+$500 U.S Dollars
“That’s real money?” Jake asked.