What had happened earlier on the trail took place again in the small information booth—the air around her solidified into a haze. This time there were no instructions written in the air. Instead, she had an avatar waiting for her, an androgynous-looking person sitting on an invisible chair. They wore a light blue blouse with ruffles, a short kilt of black and blue squares, and a very punchable smile on their narrow face.
“Good evening Jinn, my name is Kay and I’m a part of OMR’s customer service board. You recently lodged a complaint with VICA, and I’m here to resolve it.”
Jinn arched an eyebrow.
“That was fast.”
“We value our customers.” Kay smiled. “And I value the relationships I make with those in the game. It might also help that there are only twenty-five people to take care of for now, unlike when the game will launch.”
They both laughed at that.
“Your request was that all experience prior to the meeting be counted. Is that correct?”
She nodded.
“And that three of my goals are checked off, since I already accomplished them.”
“Ah, then that makes it two problems requiring two solutions. Not a worry. At this point in the game it’s a simple matter of looking at the records, and I find such research to be a joy. Let’s tackle your experience problem first.” They leaned backwards off their chair a little and snapped at the air. A small screen appeared.
Ace’s CORPSE: Level 1 (62/100 experience points needed to level up)
Current XP Status:
17S, 16R, 5P
“This doesn’t include everything before the meeting was called. You discovered two places: General Diesel & Motors and South Narrow Mountains Ranger Station. That’s 5P each for a gain of 10P. Other than that though, you didn’t earn anything else. You didn’t defeat the NPC of the station.” There was a pause. “Intriguing. I see you’ve decided to call them Romeo, probably more correct than you would believe at assigning a nickname, but yes, you didn’t defeat Romeo so there is nothing to be gained for that. Getting into the station was impressive, that was designed to be a closed area for new players, but again, your actions wouldn’t have netted you any experience points, and—”
Jinn cleared her throat.
“I have a question.”
Kay looked warily at her.
“I might be able to answer, but I cannot blindly promise.”
“I keep seeing letters. What are they?”
Kay paused, running a hand through their dark blonde hair.
“You... didn’t read the manual, did you?”
She gave them a look.
“Okay, no need for nasty stares. You have a CORPSE, yes? The letters come from that. Let’s look at your killing of the bear cub.” Side glance. “Of a completely helpless, defenseless, baby bear.”
“Look, you’re paying us to test your game,” Jinn snapped. This was an old and tired argument. “Not everyone is going to ignore the bear when it’s an easy way to gain xp in the beginning. Like with dungeons and rats.”
“I suppose you’re right, though I’m interested in gathering game data and seeing how many people choose to let the poor thing go. However, you gained 2S xp and 1R xp from that encounter. In this case, bashing the bear took more strength than anything else, netting you 2S. The 1R comes in because you had to use your reflexes to grab its leg without it attacking you. If it had attacked you and you still swung to kill it, then it would have been E for endurance.”
“Interesting... in that case I should have gotten more xp for getting into the ranger station.” She smiled, putting her grandmother’s Southern iced tea sweetness into it. “You yourself said it was not open for new players.” She ticked off her fingers. “Since that took opportunity to use the car and cables in a different way, strength to push the car, reflexes to snag the stairs, and endurance to climb, I think at least 5 more xp would be fair.”
Kay spluttered and coughed, but she waited, staring at them with a pleasant grin.
“And thinking about it, it took perception, strength, and reflexes to make my way into the Woiger den. It wasn’t as if I could have strolled up to it.”
“You—”
“Yes, me.” Her voice hardened into a firmer tone since Southern politeness wasn’t getting her anywhere. “Look, this whole game is based on getting experience points, so it’s only fair to award me what I’ve earned. Did I need to use perception to find a way to the den?”
“Yes…”
“And didn’t I need to use reflexes to catch those trees?”
“Yeeeessss…”
“Pulling myself up that slope needed strength, right?”
Kay didn’t answer that, they simply sat there and hissed like a forgotten teakettle on a hot stove.
“Something’s wrong… the system shouldn’t be like this. Let me talk with my supervisor,” they finally said, popping out of existence. Jinn looked at her bare wrist and waited. Tapped her foot, winced, then tapped her fingers against her upper arm instead. Finally, there was another pop and Kay reappeared looking a little frazzled around the edges.
“My supervisor said your arguments are correct; I’m to adjust your status and give you an assurance that as you travel further, the problem will be taken care of. This will not happen in every case though. For example, your discovery of Briny Breeze required nothing but perception.”
“I can understand that,” Jinn agreed. “Just as long as something like the Ranger’s Station gives me what I’ve put in. And what do you mean ‘something’s wrong’? This game is listed to launch in about a week after we’ve finished polishing the details.”
Kay went back to their teakettle impression.
“Spill. If there’s something wrong in the game, us testers need to know. We’re the ones living there.”
Kay closed their eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in one fell whoosh.
“Fine. But this needs to remain quiet. These complaints you have? Should not be happening. The world we created, the system, and the code, was something that would take player actions into consideration, well beyond the basic do action A, get reward B. It’s supposed to account for everything.”
“...bugs?” Jinn wasn’t sure; the basic programming classes she’d taken to get her first tester position had been too many upgrades ago. “Glitches?”
“Unsure,” said Kay. “But you’re not the only one to have noticed places not giving experience points. I overheard at least three others bearing tester complaints to my supervisor.”
“What else is wrong?”
“Nothing.” Kay’s voice didn’t sound very convinced by that. Jinn sent a silent thank you to having grown up in a passive-aggressive family, where reading the undertones had been a survival skill
“And by ‘nothing’ you think there are problems that haven’t been discovered.”
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“It’s never just one thing, right?” Kay stood up, shoving their hands onto their hips as they paced the small area. “Look, I might not be a tester like you, but there’s a different feel to this. I can’t pinpoint it right now since I don’t have the needed data.” They stopped talking, hopping back onto their invisible seat.
“Just... I don’t know what you can do, but keep an eye out for things that don’t seem right.” Kay let out a huff. “As much as customer service can be a pain in the ass at times, I actually love my job. Seeing people happy in the worlds we create, living out new experiences and lives. There’s something addictive in that.”
Jinn could understand. Testers who stayed in the job were like that, living off that thrill of new places to discover, new continents to explore. The ones who quit usually did so because they stopped finding joy.
“Yeah. I’ll look out for things.”
“Here. I don’t normally do this, but you, more than other testers I can name, seem to actually use the brains you have.” Kay wrote a letter and six numbers in the air: K529534. “This is my private number. VICA hears it, and she’ll contact me at home, no matter what time or day.”
“You’re actually worried.”
Kay flushed, turning their head away.
“Look, I don’t want to say I have premonitions or anything, but when I get gut feelings like the one I have now, I know all hell is about to break loose.” They ran a hand through their hair. “Last time was when Guardians Against Games sent chocolates to all the companies. They’d put nanobots in them, programmed to destroy white blood cells. I didn’t eat any, but I had several friends hospitalized and a few of my co-workers died.”
Jinn remembered reading about that. Stupid, privileged people who took no responsibility for their own actions, blaming video games and their creators, for “allowing evil to flourish in the hearts of humans.” Or, in some cases, accusing VR programmers of twisting humans into immoral gods by giving them a reality to kill things in.
“At any rate,” continued Kay, “please contact me if you find anything. I’ll do the same, and speak with you if I find anything on my end.” They shook themselves. “Back to the original conversation since the longer my complaint ticket remains open, the more likely it is someone will want to know why.”
Jinn nodded; message to shut the fuck up received.
“Now, revisiting all of your previous actions."
1 bear cub defeated. 2S xp and 1R xp gained, no change.
1 woiger defeated. 15S xp and 15R xp gained, no change.
“You mentioned before,” Jinn interrupted, halting the stream of words from the rep, “that if the bear had bitten me I would have gained an endurance point. Why not when I was clawed too?”
Kay shifted on their seat.
“That would have been in place of your 1R gained.”
“Then why not 15S, 13R, and 2E? Since I had to continue battling with four furrows scraped into my arm. That takes endurance.”
Kay stared at her.
“This is part of the reason I don’t completely understand gamers and testers. It’s just two points, why do they even matter?”
Jinn snorted.
“I didn’t read your manual, right? VICA, pull up my CORPSE stats.”
Ace
* Charisma - 6/100
* Opportunities - 6/100
* Reflexes - 5/100
* Perception - 6/100
* Endurance - 6/100
* Strength - 6/100
“Looking at your system, this is where I am now, what I start with since I still haven't leveled up. When a person does level up, they'll receive a certain amount of points put into each of their skill bases. If there are only a hundred points to max out the skill, and discovering a new place gives me 5P, then I only need to discover twenty places before I’m done. In a game like this, twenty places is a pebble compared to what I should be discovering. Get it?”
Kay’s eyes narrowed at the numbers in front of them. “I’m following. Not quite sure why the points are important, but I’m following.”
“Every point I get allows me to keep my skills evenly spread out. What I need are ones that continue to grow with me so that I can depend on all of them.”
“You... play a lot of games.”
“Hey, you hired one of the best testers out there.” Jinn wasn’t bragging. There was a reason that she had her pick on contracts. “That means I’ve gone through games, tried out my strategies, and know what I want to stick to. Most people who play a first-person shooter go for upping their strength and reflexes, but without a good bartering skill that means they’re out of bullets before everyone else or that they can’t save up money for specialized equipment.”
“And so you complain to customer service to get what you want.” There was a soft smile on Kay’s face as they said that, and the words weren’t harsh. Jinn shook her head.
“No. You’re the one who said being wounded in combat is a reflection of endurance, and I followed up on that with an example of being wounded in combat. That’s legit.”
Kay cocked their head to the side.
“... well, at least you’re arguing logic with me and not whining,” they muttered, going back to the list. “The whining is the annoying part."
1 woiger defeated. 15S xp, 13R xp, and 2E xp gained - changed.
1 General Diesel & Motors discovered. 5P - no change.
“About Diesel Motors,” Jinn interrupted. “I was able to solve the riddle and open the safe. That should be in perception, shouldn’t it?”
She smiled as Kay blinked.
“You’re going to nitpick everything, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to assert myself, yes,” she corrected. Then a thought occurred to her and she let out a bark of laughter. “And I can guarantee that I’m not the only person that will be doing this. You hired Bearclaw and LMFS. They’re going to do the same, if they haven’t already, and if there is another way your system is messing up, they will be sending you, or your co-workers, complaints about that as well.”
Kay shut their eyes and took a deep breath.
“One moment please.” They disappeared again as Jinn snickered. If they were going to complain about her, then she was going to point them in the right direction of assholes to complain about. Bearclaw was well known in the “random lottery” circles as spending a lot of money and then loudly complaining until he got the prize he’d been aiming for in the first place. LMFS, short for Last Mother Fucker Standing, was the first one everyone teamed up to kill in battle royal games since she pulled every dirty trick in the book to make sure that she was, in fact, the last one standing; sniping from a safe point was one of the classier moves.
“You were right. They’re already complaining.” They sighed. “From what little I can hear, thank you for not being them.”
She dipped her head in understanding.
1 General Diesel & Motors discovered. 5P gained - changed.
1 safe opened via riddle. 1O, 2P gained - changed.
South Narrow Mountains Ranger Station discovered. 5P, 3O, 2E, 1R, 2S gained - changed.
1 Woiger Den discovered. 5P, 2R, 2S gained - changed.
Briny Breeze discovered. 5P gained - no change.
Kay stopped.
“That’s everything about your stats. VICA, show adjustments please.”
Ace’s CORPSE: Level 1 (32/100 experience points needed to level up)
Current XP Status:
4O, 17R, 22P, 21S, 4E
“As for the goals, I’m marking four as completed—”
“Four?”
Kay arched an eyebrow.
“The cables were a tool, and by using them as a rope Tooling Around was achieved.”
“Sweet.”
“Here are your current goals.”
Time to Haul Ass - Carry 25 kilos of items for more than 5 hours
The Keymaster - Find and collect ten keys
Wet and Willing - Take a shortcut through water
High and Mighty - Look down from a place three stories high or taller
Keen on Genes - Get your first in-game mutation
Jinn stifled a groan at High and Mighty. Easiest way to do that would be to head back up the trail, but damn if she didn’t want to chat again with Romeo. Maybe there’d be a place in Briny.
“Is that everything?” Kay asked, brushing hair out of their eyes. “No hidden points somewhere else? No other ‘this really used this skill and not that skill’ that I need to re-configure?”
Jinn shook her head.
“I’m good. Goals have been updated, skills are on the right track, and you promised this won't happen again.”
“Please keep your eyes peeled for any other situations that might need customer service care.” Behind the bland words, she could see the worry and concern in their dark blue eyes. They needed reassurance.
“Will do. Anything out of the ordinary, and I’ll call you.”
Jinn waved a middle finger in goodbye as the haze faded out, putting her back into the world. Saul was frozen, his mouth open, but after a few seconds he began talking again, unaware of the interruption. She smiled. Twelve days left, she was off to a damn good start, and she’d already found where she was going to build her settlement. Perfect.