Chapter 47: Why, Though
At the time, after I got over the shock of seeing artfully plated sushi arranged so on my plate, I decided the meal at Kurasawa was worth it. Partly because when was the last time I’d had decent sushi? Literally ever? Partly because we got to sit in the mostly-empty restaurant and make plans. Partly because it was absurdly cute to see Bernie propped in an empty chair next to Lena, even if, in or out of Third Eye, he continued to refuse her attempts to get him to eat something.
Maybe I’d feel differently when I saw our credit card bills. It’s not like the prices were backbreaking. Unless you were the proverbial camel, and piling extra straw on your back sounded like a terrible idea.
It sure didn’t spoil my mood, though.
Not so much because of the food, though that didn’t hurt.
While our server cleared our plates away, though, Lena and I got out our phones and tallied up our XP from the morning’s expedition.
Then we ran the numbers two more times, because they seemed impossible.
In two and a half hours – our frequent stops had slowed us down, compared to our original itinerary – we’d each collected almost 4,000 XP. Our reserves of Wood, Iron, and especially Stone had soared. Lena’s Stone had outright doubled, since she’d started with a lower total than me.
She flopped back against her chair. “That’s... a lot.”
“Lil’ bit.” I rubbed my eyes. “I know we talked about catching a bus back to town after we ate, but do you want to stick around here for the rest of the day and keep scouting?”
“Unless we find a Reactant or something, I’m not sure it gets us any stronger,” she said.
“It sure pushes us further away from the bottom 1%,” I said.
We could speculate on where we might face another creature, or about what Mask might do if they beat us. Falling out of the beta, however, represented an all-too-certain loss condition. We wouldn’t be able to maintain Lena’s channel, sure as hell wouldn’t be able to win any tournaments, and would be at the mercy of anyone still playing Third Eye.
I wondered what would happen to Bernie. I glanced at him, seated at the table in plushie form. If I looked through my phone, I’d see him curled on the chair with his tail draped over Lena’s legs.
He’d respawned after a fight.
Would he despawn if she fell out of the beta, along with all of her powers?
She reached over and stroked his head. “We’re not hitting the tunnel until after dark, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Besides, I want to give Zhizhi the chance to film that expedition if she’s up for it. We have to wait till she’s off work.”
Lena nodded. “So we got a whole day to kill. Probably shouldn’t do a lot of practice, in case we need our HP and MP for the tunnel.”
“You’re not tired?”
“Nope.” She stared out the restaurant’s window. “It really is crazy, huh?”
“The crazy thing is –” I chuckled at the absurdity of what I’d been about to say. “Okay, the actual crazy thing is that we’re not tired. But also, that this was just the stuff along a single highway. How much is out there?”
“Explains why there hasn’t been a content refresh, anyway,” Lena said.
“Most people aren’t seeing any of this,” I said. I pulled up the wiki on my phone and scrolled through the recent entries. Almost every one that I recognized the location of came from inside a city.
“Folks who live in rural areas don’t have a ton of incentive to get into AR games, I guess,” she said. “Most aren’t going to put any content out there. Who wants to drive an hour just to play a game on your phone?”
“So why is Third Eye doing it?”
She shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“It might.” I said.
If we could just grasp what the devs wanted from the game, I felt certain we’d get a leg up on improving within it. Also, we might get a better sense of how dangerous it might become. I hadn’t forgotten about Albie’s promise that we wouldn’t see open world PVE in the beta – or the implied threat that when the beta period ended, we would.
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“All right,” Lena said. “Let me flip it around. Is there any chance we’re going to figure out the reason?”
I exhaled. “Point.”
So many of Third Eye Productions’ decisions made no sense from a game design perspective. They didn’t seem to make sense as a way to lead us gradually into understanding magic, either, or whatever the game’s hidden purpose turned out to be. It wasn’t like I could consider myself an expert there, though.
“Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” I said.
She tilted Bernie toward her so she could exchange a glance with him. “You mean the way where we spend our time thinking about motives instead of practicalities?”
I felt a stab of irritation.
I got that Lena just wanted to win, that she had more than me to fight for. And hey, if it came down to her or me, I’d gladly sacrifice my beta participation to extend hers, just to keep Bernie around.
Fine. If it was just a game, more than fine! Accepting Third Eye at face value had led us to the construction site, though. Had led to Lena accepting Mask’s challenge.
We knew just enough to get ourselves in trouble.
“I had a point, you know.” I hated how petulant I sounded. Mood? Spoiling.
Lena sighed and reached across the table to take my hands. “Sorry. I’m listening.”
I rubbed my thumbs on her palms. Mood? Restored. “Thanks. Check me on this, okay? I want to know if it makes sense.”
“Go for it.”
“We talk about Third Eye planting stuff for us to find,” I said. “That doesn’t really gel with what Albie told us about the construction site, though.”
“How the creature wasn’t actually a Third Eye thing, you mean?”
“And how it was full of objects we could collect,” I said. “Why were they there if we weren’t supposed to go in?”
“Maybe after the beta, we are,” Lena said. “How many people would risk fighting IRL monsters, even if they were strong enough to win?”
I winced. “So the devs put a huge windfall in a dangerous place to lure people into tackling the things they actually want us to deal with?”
“I know it’s not a great look, and I don’t want to put that evil on Albie’s name.” Lena’s hands spread in mine. “Doesn’t it make sense, though?”
“Maybe.” Too much. I glanced out the window.
She cocked her head. “What was your theory?”
Why bother saying? Lena’s explanation made more sense, as long as I was willing to believe Albie was either duping us or being duped by her brother.
Since Lena still seemed to be waiting, though, I forced myself to say, “I’m not convinced the devs are placing this stuff, even algorithmically.”
“Then where does it come from?”
“What if it was already there?”
“Ah, yes,” Lena said. “The famous naturally occurring street sign stockpile.”
She grinned as she said it and with only a little effort, I made myself smile along.
“I’m not saying the objects are part of the natural world,” I said, “but maybe they... reflect the world, somehow. Third Eye is just letting us see and interact with them. It would make sense with the name, wouldn’t it?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “My Realm felt way too personalized for that. Too intentional.”
I pulled my hands away and leaned back. Slowly, I nodded. “Damn. It felt like I was on to something for a minute there.”
“Maybe some of it just reflects the world, or however you think it works, but the important stuff is handcrafted?”
“All of the basic resources could be planted algorithmically, anyway. How would we even tell the difference?” I shook my head. “I guess it was a stupid idea.”
“It wasn’t!” She stretched all the way across the table and snatched one of my hands back. “This philosophical stuff isn’t my jam, but I think it’s really cool that it’s yours. It might be important, too. You can bounce ideas off me anytime.”
I met her eyes. After a second to make sure my voice wouldn’t crack, I said, “Thanks, Lena.”
She leaned even further forward, belly on the table, and kissed me. “You’re welcome, you big nerd.”
I could’ve wrapped her into a hug and pulled her the rest of the way across the table. Even though we were the only patrons, however, we were in a tasteful sitdown Japanese restaurant in suburban Parker. Standards applied. Reluctantly, I let the kiss end; Lena scooted back to her side of the table the same way.
I’m not sure if our public display of affection hurried the arrival of our check, but our waiter did appear right after. Smiling, polite, nonjudgmental, and making damned sure we cleared our tab and cleared out before any local customers arrived for lunch.
I finalized the payment and joined Lena on the sidewalk. I found her messing with something on her phone.
She turned to me when I emerged and showed me a Google Maps screen. “How about this?”
At that angle, I had no idea what “this” was. Lines on a map and a picture of stairs? “Some more details, maybe?”
“Hiking trail!” She pointed south. “It’s just outside of town, it’s on an actual hill, so you won’t have to feel like you’re going to fall through the world, and since it’s designed for people to walk, nobody’s going to look at us like we’re casing their houses for a robbery. Win-win-win.”
I squinted at the screen. Rueter-Hess Incline, near the area’s reservoir. A hundred steps up hilly terrain, the sort of thing I would’ve needed days to psych myself up for before Third Eye. Judging from the distance, it would add at least another hour to our expedition.
How much XP would it add to our totals?