Winding down after the log off sequence, Allen ordered food to his unit, the little servo unit came with the evening dish of pizza and orange juice, he sprawled in his rig, letting the haptic machine immitate a couch and turned on his feed screen.
Knowing what he was looking for and the cranial interface put him in the public forum for V.E.R.G.E in less than 20 seconds. He started scanning the messages to try and figure how deep was the shit he sunk himself in was.
Finding only a few complaints from players being respawned in some crap island instead of the continent while others were trying to find out why the ship didnt respawn for a new voyage he realised he was quite clear from any faults about the incident, company policy was to only punish if an NPC was exposed to be a person, nothing else would get him into any real trouble.
Done with his pizza and caught up with the news he cared about allen read a few personal messages when he remembered he had to contact carol to replace him on the next shift as captain, he sent her an invite to chat and while waiting he started planning his recreational time, now cut down by a third with him sticking in the ship instance for an hour to clean up all that shit the other NPCs were doing.
When Carol joined him in the chat room he quickly explained what was happening and gave her his entry codes so she will get his captain character and can keep the instance online with Rick's help, she was quite revved up and soon logged in to the ghost ship instance.
Allen remembered he had to call the rat swarm girl and looked up her instance player number, sending her a PM and stretching out in the rig for his hour of excercise, he put on some swashbuckling arena sequence and started practicing his sword and pistol fighting skills so he could get the extra credits in the game.
He found his renewed interest in the game weird, after 3 years as an NPC you just stopped caring, after 10 years the idle and blocked interfaces did most of the work anyway. If there was nothing you wanted to spend credits on, why bother getting currency you couldnt use once you got out of jail and couldnt trade for anything you cared for.
This new old sensation filled him with happiness he almost forgot existed, skimming the forum pages while slashing and jumping around the cell, he got an invite to chat from Deborah Mckinney, distracted he hit reply and saw the swarm rat girl in her bare persona jumping back from his slash, "whoa there dude, called me here to kill me?".
Allen stopped the program and called a chat cafe' scene where they could sit and talk, "burning credits on me?", she looked surprised as the old paris street was displayed in the window, "what do you want?".
"I have a proposition for you", allen tried sounding serious but his breaths came up short from the exorcise, "I figure you aren't into all that torture players shit that was going on", he said catching his breath.
"Not sure what you'r talking about but go on", she looked at him almost blinking.
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"I can give you an evolution sequence for your swarm if you never talk about what happened in those rooms" he looked at her flinching a little, "I guess you got drawn by those other guys", taking a deep breath "I dumped the off the ship so you dont need to worry about them", turning to look out the window while waiting for her reply.
"What do you mean by evolution?" surprise sounded in her voice, "there is no evolution for direrats", breathing out "they are like direwolves", straightening up in a lecturing tone "thats the top you get for any animal".
"There is one over it" he breathed out "But i want your word about the incident before i tell you more".
"Fine you got my word i wont tell anyone about the torture stuff" she sounded sceptical, "if you know a higher evolution than Dire to any animal", she paused "Hell i wont even talk about the ship to anyone", she looked outside "and you can be damn sure i wont talk about the evolution".
He used his credits to call a dire rat to the cafe' scene, "take over it", the woman vanished and the direrat looked up at him, "now you need to break the idle protocols manualy", he pointed at the vacant seat in front of him "sit upright".
Oordering breakfast for two with salad, eggs and toast he looked at the awekward posture the 'rat' was sitting at, "now pick up the knife and fork with your 'hands', its not easy" he breathed out as she tried to do it, "take your time and think it through".
Picking up the knife from its blade he held it for her to grab, "now the hardest pard, eat with the fork and knife", he demonstrated "dont shovel, cut, pick, eat", every motion looked agonizing, slowly she did as he told her and the movement became more fluid.
"Good" he pointed at a tall glass "now drink the juice" and she picked it up, "dont gulp, let it slide slow", the silent rat looked at him sceptically when suddenly something shifted, her fingers lengthened, eyes open wide and staring at a message "I see you got it", he said finally.
Her face contorted, became more human and somehow more rattish, the hair on her head elongated and falling to her back that was now straight without the strain, she choked on the juice she was still drinking and he went around to pat on her back until she caught her breath.
"Oh my GOD" she breathed out "how the hell did you find this out?"
"Thats a secret i wont share" he answered quickly before she asked more questions, "you still have some improvements to make" he dismissed the cafe' scene and activated the swashbuckler training, "this one is for free" he handed the wererat a sword and using his own he slashed at her.
Instinct made her defend against his slow attack and the idle routine made a slash at him that he stopped, "you are no longer an animal", he stabbed and she pushed his sword aside using her 'human' sword skill, "you are a monster now", he fended off her reply "and you can get classes", picking up the pace he drove at her until she gained all the regular idle routines and opened up the swashbuckler class for her wererat.
When allen saw her skill was displaying a class feature he turned off the excercise and put them back in the cafe', Deborah slashed with an empty hand at the air in front of her, "OMG OMG OMG" she squealed with delight, "wow wow wow", looking at him with a new appreciation, "dude WOW" she breathed in "I totally owe you one"
He smiled at the happy woman "just what i asked you", remembering the happiness he fealt the first time he evolved to a monster, "dont talk about torture club".
"Dude you got this" sitting back down "are you some hacker or something?", breathing in, "no dont tell me" breathing out "i dont care", putting her hand on her chest "i owe you one".
They finished eating in silence and she left, Allen returned to his training session to finish his hour and then logged to his own player character for the 2 hours he had left of recreational time.