Chapter 41: Game Mechanics
A quick refresher on how the Third Eye app’s user interface worked.
The gag answer would be, “Not well.” Also, an accurate answer. One of the game’s many mysteries was how it could achieve such incredible things, yet did so through such an awkward and primitive program.
For instance, no effort seemed to have been made to fit the various windows we could open into any kind of sensible space. The top menu bar wrapped over to two lines on Lena’s interface, and we knew of at least one category of object, Refinements, that neither of us had found yet.
It had only started wrapping when she found and attuned to Bernie. At that point, a heading for Daimons joined the ones for Materials and Reactants. Similarly, each of those headings, and their associated windows, only appeared as we collected our first instances of what they contained.
Although no one we knew personally had done it, I’d read on the wiki that if you used up your last Material or Reactant, the entire window would disappear until you got another one.
All of which was to say that when Lena’s eyes widened, her lips parted in a trembling smile, and her hands gripped my shoulders and started shaking me, her reaction didn’t seem completely unwarranted.
Third Eye still thought she had Bernie.
I crushed her into a hug and felt her fingernails dig into my shirt.
“He’s going to be okay,” she murmured against my chest.
“I think so,” I said.
“He’s gotta be!” She pulled back enough to look up at me. “What do you mean, ‘think?’”
“He’s going to be okay eventually,” I said. “I do believe that much, for sure. I just don’t know if he’ll recover automatically, like our HP and MP do, or if we’ll need a Potion or something.”
Lena bit her lip. “Oh.”
I slid my hand around to touch her chin. “Another reason I need to start studying up on Potions, yeah?”
“Yeah!” Her smile returned. She leaned up and kissed me; if I’d still been frowning, that certainly put paid to it.
After a moment, she even let me tug her to her feet, away from Bernie.
I glanced at Benji. Normally, I wouldn’t have felt bad about how affectionate Lena and I could get, but I understood how it might be uncomfortable for him under the circumstances.
Maybe it was, because he’d spun my computer chair around and was staring at the screen. He’d closed out of the Imagined Worlds page on it, and the tournament rules page on Lena’s. Which, again, I understood, even if I thought he really should’ve asked first.
At the very least, I considered it justification to read over his shoulder. Lena’s computer, he’d left on Discord, but on mine, he was scanning the Third Eye wiki.
It surprised me so much that I didn’t even have to push down my annoyance at him messing with our PCs without asking.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“No offense,” he said, “but you gave me more of a philosophical explanation of what this game of yours is. I’m trying to understand how you actually play.”
“Oh.” I exhaled a brief laugh. “Sorry. Guess I got a little worked up.”
“I sort of get why,” he said. “Sounds like you expect Lena’s pet to be okay, though? Do you still think the game is shit?”
“I...” I ran my fingers through my hair. I mumbled, “It’s complicated.”
I said it partly to buy time, because I’d become distracted by how greasy my hair felt. Soaked with sweat and maybe other things I’d rolled through on the multiple occasions the figure had put me on my ass.
I shot Lena a glance. Both her stockings were torn at the knees, and unlike some of her jeans, I knew it wasn’t a cost-saving and/or fashion choice. Enough grease and dirt smudged her jacket that it had gone from pink to alien landscape camouflage.
I supposed my clothes were in the same state.
Benji followed my gaze. “You guys can go ahead and get cleaned up or whatever. I’m going to read up on this shit.”
I nodded and started to trudge toward the back room. Lena lingered by the pet bed, so I stopped at her side.
She flicked her eyes down to Bernie.
I rubbed her arm. “We’re not going to find anything out until the midnight HP refresh.”
She sighed. “You’re right.”
Fifteen minutes, a change of clothes, and the least sexy double shower of our or anyone else’s lives later, Lena made for the bedroom, saying she needed to look for something. I kissed her cheek and returned to the living room.
I found everything the same as we’d left it. Bernie unmoving in his pet bed, Benji at my computer, the Third Eye wiki scrolling past.
Scrolling pretty fast, then back up to linger over a line here and there. I drifted to the computers to see what had caught his attention.
The page he was stuck on discussed who had access to the game. For those of us who’d Kickstarted Third Eye, the most relevant information was that the bottom 1% of players dropped out at the end of each day. While we weren’t sure if any other factors counted, XP seemed to be the main way we got ranked.
Too bad we hadn’t taken the figure’s last HP, and with it, a tenth of their XP. I thought the game would be better off if they fell out of the playerbase, at least until the end of the beta period.
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On the flipside, good thing neither Lena nor I had lost our last HP. I suspected that we’d gained enough XP to remain in the game after a few losses. Whenever we found out otherwise, it would be the hard way.
To Benji, I said, “I don’t know if you’d want to get in on this after what we’ve been through, but it doesn’t seem like they’re letting anybody new into the game until the beta period ends.”
He practically jumped out of my chair. “Jesus, Cameron! Way to sneak up on me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t expect you to be so into Third Eye.”
For a second, his hand tightened on the mouse. “You didn’t expect me to be so into a game that apparently breaks the laws of physics?”
I shuffled my feet. “We’re still trying to figure out if it’s actual magic, or some kind of sufficiently advanced technology.”
He spun my chair around. “Either way, it’s kind of a big deal, yeah?”
“Too big for any of us,” I said.
“No shit.” He stroked his chin. “What’s your play now?”
“Same as before,” I said. “Find more Materials, hopefully more Reactants, and learn to use them better. Get stronger.”
Attend the tournament?
I wasn’t sure if losing the one-on-one to the figure would change Lena’s mind about her chances. At the very least, I expected us to go to Tampa as commentators. I wasn’t going to bring it up to Benji, though.
Even without my doing so, he frowned. “You still want to keep playing, huh?”
“It’s not as crazy as it might sound,” I said. “I don’t know if you’ve read this part, but when you get dropped from the beta, you lose your powers, but you can still see and interact with Third Eye objects. Miguel actually got hurt that way, back before we knew the game had real-world effects. If another player wants to mess with us, making sure we get stronger than them is actually safer than giving up and falling out of the beta.”
“If you say so.” He stood up, glanced at the screen one last time, then shook his head. “That’s enough excitement for me for one night. If you’re done in the bathroom, I’m gonna get changed, crash, and play some normal-ass phone games in bed.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I hesitated, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Ben.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re leaning on that pretty hard, little bro.”
“It’s going to be a while before I think of you that way, but I’m making the effort. I’ll let Lena know it’s what you’d rather she call you, too.” I sighed. “And... seriously, thanks.”
“For what?”
“Coming after us.”
“Yeah, well.” He stepped away and scratched the back of his neck. “Welcome.”
While he walked to the back of the apartment, I looked over the open wiki page on my screen. I felt like I’d missed something in our conversation, but my brain was too fried to make sense of it.
Looking at the wiki did remind me of something, though. I took the seat Benji had vacated and tabbed to the wiki team’s Discord.
OldCampaigner: Just a heads up, Ashbird and I ran into a really aggressive and skilled invader this evening. Their avatar had a black cloak and a mask. Even outside the Third Eye filter, it looked like they were cosplaying it.
DU_Goldie: lol
DU_Goldie: sounds pretty cringe
DU_Goldie was one of Erin’s classmates. I’d never met him in person, and he didn’t necessarily fit the we’re-all-friends-here vibe she cultivated, but he’d proven himself a good dude when he helped out with editing my and Lena’s first video.
Even if he’d been a total asshole, though, I wouldn’t have wanted him to underestimate the figure.
Besides, he wasn’t wrong.
OldCampaigner: Was, in fact, pretty cringe.
OldCampaigner: They knew their shit when it came to Third Eye, though. We drove them off, but didn’t drop them to 0 HP. All of us in the Denver area should watch our backs.
DU_Goldie: k
NugsFan15: Thank you for telling us. If you have the time, please add their description to the Invasion Report.
OldCampaigner: Good call.
In addition to the wiki, Erin maintained a separate site where players who opposed invasion PVP could post warnings about those who attacked them in Third Eye. Most invaders didn’t mess with people who traveled in groups, and Lena and I had done almost everything together, so we hadn’t had to interact with the site very often.
Actually, the only time I’d opened it was to confirm what Erin had told us about Albie participating in PVP. Another mystery. According to the reports, she’d challenged players in cities all over the world – a little girl with long aquamarine hair, accompanied by a huge shaggy dog, utterly invincible in Third Eye. Not hard to figure out who that was.
Lena and I had never gotten a chance to ask Albie why she was fighting people. Or how she was jetting from Omaha to Osaka to do so.
Or maybe we’d had the chance, but we’d been scared of the answer.
Regardless, I’d kept the site bookmarked. I opened it up and found the submission form. Erin had added more detail since the last time I’d looked. In addition to the fields for time, date, and location, and the big text entry box where users could enter a more extensive description of their experiences, there were also boxes to note which Reactants the invader used, and even two fields for estimated HP and MP. Users could also add whatever tags they wanted to their descriptions, with a dropdown showing common examples.
I couldn’t help but grin. The contrast between this slick interface and the one we used to actually play Third Eye was hilarious. Maybe the devs should hire Erin to be their UI designer.
Or, you know, hire an actual professional?
I supposed that if you were using a game to promulgate magic, or to clue select people into its existence, you probably had a restricted hiring pool.
I put my exploration of the site on hold when I heard something rattle behind me.
Lena emerged from the bedroom with a clear plastic bin in her arms. The scissors she’d put inside it bounced against a needle and thread.
“What are those for?” I asked.
She showed off one of those great manic grins I’d once mistaken for confidence and now knew signaled a bout of nerves. “Gotta patch Bernie up. Think how disappointed he’ll be tomorrow if his stuffing is still falling out.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked. “Pushing a needle and thread through his ‘body’?”
Lena’s grin wavered, but she nodded. “Pretty sure. Either he’ll get repaired all the way when the clock strikes midnight, both forms, in which case anything I do to the plushie version will also get fixed...”
Either that, or what? Lena let the thought trail off, and I wasn’t about to prompt her to say it.
“Makes sense,” I said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
She cocked her head and considered it. “Can I cut up one of your old sweatshirts instead of mine?”
I noticed that one of the objects she’d retrieved from the bedroom was an especially ratty hoodie with the Overwatch logo on the front. We’d both worn the hell out of that merch when we were crazy about the game, and gotten increasingly uncomfortable about wearing it in public as said game’s reputation soured.
Also, in the case of this shirt of hers, as it started to fall apart.
“Nope,” I said. “That one looks like it’s more than ready to be reincarnated as a higher being.”
Lena laughed. God, it felt good to hear her laugh.
While she knelt by Bernie’s pet bed and set to cutting up the hoodie, I turned back to the Invasion Report.
Before I entered the data from our own incident, I decided to do a quick search for tags that might bring up previous encounters with the figure. Their edgelord getup might make it hard to identify them to the cops, but it made them very distinctive among Third Eye players.
The ‘Cloak’ tag had about five hundred entries, which didn’t surprise me. Even my avatar wore one. I deleted it and tried with just ‘Mask’ and ‘Shadow.’
When I saw the results, my smile disappeared.