“Good afternoon Tester.”
The bland voice echoed around a chamber that had three working lights out of eight, dusted glass shards coating the floor, and heaps of rotting machinery piled high. Jinn and the other volunteer testers had already been told that the game was post-apocalyptic, but it was always nice when the waiting area gave a preview. Most game companies cared about visual presentation, so there were only a few that went into the other senses, enveloping a person wholly into the game even before they entered. Here there were slight scents in the air, mostly dust, desperation, and decay, along with a faint taste of rusted metal, similar to how Blood Dungeon VI had been set up. Jinn was up to date on her tetanus shots, but still didn’t want to touch anything she didn’t need to.
“Registration code 14446 Zimmer.”
“Carpelatha, you have logged in to Our Mutual Ruins. Do you wish to use this name in play?”
“Don’t use my registration name. Use ‘Ace’ for my character. A, C, E.”
“Understood.” There was a pause. “Once you’ve created your CORPSE and finished setting up, you will be transported into the game’s environment.”
“My what?” Jinn shook her head at the abbreviation. “That’s a new one to me.”
“CORPSE stands for the Charisma, Opportunities, Reflexes, Perception, Strength, and Endurance of your character. These are the most basic stats of the game and ones that will increase as the player increases in level. Also, the longer a player survives OMR, the possibility of adding mutations that add a positive, negative, or neutral effect becomes higher.”
She nodded to herself. Good chamber delivery, any noob could begin and know how they could get better.
“What’s your definition of mutation?”
The voice cleared its throat, and that was another note to add, using human characteristics to make it feel more one-on-one for the player. Better than the standard android voice at any rate; so far the game promised a high level of quality fun.
“A mutation is a chance occurrence which adds benefits or disabilities to the basic CORPSE you create. For example, you could sprout antennae, used for finding people and items, or your body could create another mouth on the back of your head.”
Jinn blinked. Delicate things attached to her head that would hurt like hell when pulled and a mouth that would always be eating hair. Yay.
“Neither of those sound inviting.”
“Mutations cover an assorted range of ‘good, bad, neutral,’ however, anything labeled ‘bad’ could be a benefit in OMR, and vice versa. Voice Distortion normally makes it harder for people to understand the speaker. Yet, if there are any beings with sonic hearing or that live underground, conversation is possible depending on how the mutation that changed your voice. Glow, when your entire body has a slight bioluminescence to it, keeps your body lit no matter the environment. Great for scavenging and exploring, not so great when trying to sneak around or get away from enemies.”
This sounded like a challenge she could have fun manipulating. Sure, testing a post-apocalyptic game was already fun, but finding mutations and making them work for you? She had an image of a warlord with a mutation to call rain, or a tinkerer able to sniff out metal within a five-meter radius. This was a perfect fit for anyone hit with game burnout. How to best live in post-apocalyptia, not simply how to best survive. The two ideas were quite different.
“Anything more you can tell me about mutations?” A hint on how to trigger mutations would be nice, but that was probably a politely programmed no.
“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to say more than what I have already said. Do you want me to repeat myself?”
Called it. If information wasn’t needed here, then it should be something easy enough to trigger in game. The sooner her CORPSE was up and moving, the sooner she could start enjoying the game.
“No repeats needed. Let’s start then.”
The lighting in the room dimmed, and on one of the junk heaps, a shattered mirror developed a back glow, coaxing Jinn closer. Peering into the biggest piece of looking glass showed nothing. To the right side, crude carvings in the wooden frame showed a short haircut, a blank face, and a body. No clothing options, which was an interesting start. She flicked the hair, and in the mirror appeared a short spiky brown mess, edges flying in every direction.
“How can I speed this up?” After the first twenty or so game tests, character creation became more a boring chore than anything about exciting possibilities, and every game since then that hadn’t forced her into playing dress up for an hour or two had gotten an extra rating point.
“There are two ways I can speed this process up. If you are happy with how you present yourself, I can scan and copy you, or I can generate a random combination.”
“Random.”
The mirror showed Jinn a tall male, dark skin glowing with a bronze undertone. He had a black anchor beard, shaved at the sides from where the goatee grew, and gorgeous brown eyes the color of mahogany. The face smiled at her and gave her a wink.
“Nice. But that’s my dating style, not my play style.” She blew a kiss at the construct and he caught it. “Change to a female figure.”
He waved goodbye, and she waved hello, the chest and hip area expanding slightly while fingers grew more slender. The prominent Adam’s apple smoothed out and facial hair faded away.
“Hmm…” Jinn smirked and shook her head. “Nope. Still too much my type. Tawny skin please.”
The woman’s dark skin lightened a bit, keeping the bronze undertone.
“Don’t change the left eye color, but adjust the right eye to a pale sea-green. Good.” Playing dress up might be time-consuming and overall annoying, but there were a few ways of making a character more like herself and most of them only took a few minutes or orders. “As for the hair, copy my current style and dye it all silver. Sculpt the body to be more athletic with a rectangular shape.”
“Athletics range from gymnastics and basketball to weightlifting and bodybuilding. Is there a particular build that interests you?”
“Show me the body shapes of high tier athletes.” She’d played zombie games before with a couch potato body, and while that was fun, it wasn’t how she wanted this run through to go.
3D pictures appeared over the brightened mirror, each of the women wearing black tops and bottoms so that focus was on their differing sizes, muscle groupings, and heights. She swiped past several pictures, knowing they weren’t quite what she wanted, even though these women were at the top of their sport. The basketball player, the long-distance runner, the wrestler, the weightlifter...
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“Stop.” Jinn’s eyes drank in the picture of the proud hammer thrower. The woman’s brown skin gleamed, either lighted for effect or smeared with oil for the same purpose. Or both. She was stocky, toned all over, and had beautiful thick thighs and upper arms. “Copy her physique.”
The hips of the character creation pulled in a bit, equaling with the shoulders, and when she moved, there were ripples of corded muscles. Her stomach had also filled out a little more, not showing ribs, and was on the bigger side of average.
“The body’s done.” Jinn nodded at the woman in satisfaction. “Next.”
“Mentality. This can be done through an old-fashioned point system or—”
“Scan my brain waves,” Jinn broke in. “I know best how it works, all the good and bad.” A survival game was not the place to be getting used to how a new brain worked.
“Very well.” There was a bright light again, that ‘showing what we’re doing’ thing AIs had programmed into them—and then the woman looking back at had a very familiar intelligence shining in her eyes. “Would you care to know how your knowledge breaks down into character build stats?”
The word ‘no’ was on her tongue, but for some reason, it stayed there.
“Sure,” sighed Jinn, raising an eyebrow. “How is this system different from every other system I’ve played?” She looked around for a chair and found an intact stool near the back of the trash heap. It took a few seconds to grab it, but then she was ready for whatever info drop was about to happen. Sooner begun, sooner done and all that.
“Let me explain. ‘C’ is the starting letter of CORPSE, and it stands for your Charisma. In turn, that’s how much empathy show towards other people, in addition to how aptly you can communicate with them. The third application of this is being able to adjust the strength of the bond people will have with you. You can find people to talk to, and speak languages well, including sarcasm and puns.”
Jinn nodded.
“Nothing new.”
“Opportunities is equivalent to luck matched with fortune and then topped with creativity. An example would be scavenging. You see the motorcycle, the magazine with articles on non-gasoline engines, and can imagine how a working bike would make things better.”
Usually, an “opportunity” like that also depended on how much work and resources a person wanted to put into it, but thankfully most games didn’t hold themselves to all of reality’s nit-picky rules.
“Reflexes allow you to dive, duck, dodge, dip, and do almost anything to get your body moving the way you want it to. This also helps with hunting and fishing, and with reacting to anything your perception brings up that is on the edge of strange. You are able to respond quickly and in the correct way to specific information and dangers.”
That was useful phrasing, “in the correct way.” Her lips quirked as she remembered her first bullet hell, and how her reflexes had continually thrown her into a world of pain.
“Perception is how you see the world, and the people, around you. If Charisma attracts a new friend, then Perception is how you can tell if they truly are a friend or if they’re waiting for an opportune moment to stab you in the back. You can see the little bits of the world and use those facts to come to a conclusion.”
Sounded useful, but probably something she wouldn’t put many points in. This playthrough was going to be about exploring the environment and seeing what could and couldn’t be created.
“Strength is mostly self-evident, but it also has a few extra conditions, such as mental strength, in defense against attacks on the mind, and emotional strength, usable to defend against shock from events and people. You can to defend yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically from the trials, horrors, and wicked things in the wastelands.”
If she was going to go scavenger, she was also going to stay away from wherever the hell the wicked things lived. Jinn made a mental note, then underlined it several times.
“Endurance is the final basic stat. This translates to how well you can take a hit, how long you can work before you tire, and if you’re being affected negatively by poison or the environment, how long it takes until you show the symptoms.”
Jinn nodded and stroked her chin, considering everything that she’d heard.
“Alright, you convinced me. Display my numbers.”
Sparkles of black dust gathered to show what numbers she was currently sitting at.
Ace
* Charisma - 6/100
* Opportunities - 6/100
* Reflexes - 5/100
* Perception - 6/100
* Endurance - 6/100
* Strength - 6/100
Well rounded, but that wasn’t her style during testing.
“Let’s change that up a little,” Jinn said, standing up and looking at the figures. “I’m not a min-maxer. Never was, never will be; dominating a game doesn’t equal enjoying it in my opinion. With that said though… Perception, Endurance, and Charisma down one, Opportunities up three. Having luck on my side is always smart.”
The change was instant.
Ace
* Charisma - 5/100
* Opportunities - 9/100
* Reflexes - 5/100
* Perception - 5/100
* Endurance - 5/100
* Strength - 6/100
“Looks good since I’ll be scavenging for this playthrough.”
“Starting CORPSE has been registered to Carpelatha, named Ace.”
“Let’s play,” said Jinn, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
“There is one more matter to attend to. Your mutations.”
Jinn raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. No matter that the assistant wasn’t human, it would still register her movements as not amused.
“A starting player is to receive three random mutations.”
“Great.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Interesting tactic, allowing me to set my skills up before I’m hit with sticky modifiers. Can I at least choose them?”
“No. Each person receives one ‘good,’ one ‘neutral,’ and one ‘bad’ mutation.”
“I can hear the apostrophe’s clinking.”
“Of course, as stated before, what a being does with such mutations is what makes them good or bad.” There was a moment of silence. “You’ve gained Horned, a mutation of horns.”
A heavy feeling grew on her head, and she felt the beginnings of a small headache forming slightly above her temples. Reaching up, she traced a smooth, cool-to-the-touch horn backwards, following it as it curled inward towards her ears. Without asking for it, a copy of her body shimmered into being next to her, and she inspected the horns. They were a shiny black, standing out in stark contrast next to her white hair.
“Could be worse,” Jinn muttered to herself. “Antlers would catch on everything.”
“Your neutral mutation is Resonance. Two of your skills have been picked at random and swapped. In this case, it was Charisma and Endurance.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but the voice continued.
“However, for you, there is a bright side. When the two skill areas are of the same number, then each of them gains a skill point.”
Ace
* Charisma - 6/100
* Opportunities - 9/100
* Reflexes - 5/100
* Perception - 5/100
* Endurance - 6/100
* Strength - 6/100
Jinn laughed as she watched the numbers change. Perfect timing. Matching would have been much harder the more she leveled up.
“You weren’t joking about the mutations being subjective. Fine, what’s my worst one?”
“Element Sensitivity. Cold will bother you more than other beings, taking your body longer to warm up and get moving. If you remain in a cold area without warming up consistently, then you have a high chance of developing frostbite and needing to remove the affected limb.”
“Shit. Can’t think of a positive for that.” Jinn cracked her neck. “A little worrisome, but still, as long as I stay warm, it shouldn’t be a problem. That all?”
“That’s everything.”
“Then let’s play.”