Marke opened his eyes- Wait! Do I even have eyes this time? Marke looked around and found himself in a different office. The desk was grey speckled plastic and had a warped surface. That is a folding table. Thought Marke. A person sat across the desk/table, wearing a grey speckled suit. Is that a folding suit?
“Yes, THANK YOU, Marke Clarke. You now work for QuARK, and I think you’ll find that my desk is the envy of the whole office.” The grey person sounded very annoyed. Marke couldn’t quite make out their face for some reason, but he imagined that they looked annoyed too. “My name is Stuark, and I am your direct supervisor.” The person pronounced their name ‘stew-ark’. “You qualified for this opportunity due to your name ending in a K sound and your admittedly limited experience with Quality Assurance in your most recent life.”
I got this job because I was a QA engineer? Wait, I got this job because of my name? Marke determined that his ability to keep his mouth shut was drastically hampered by having no mouth.
“All QuARK employees and contractors have such names. Please allow me to CONTINUE with your orientation.” Stuark was obviously glaring, even without a visible face. “We draw our clients from realm building entities that seek certifications for their realms. These certifications are often crucial for future funding and tourism, so it’s important to get the highest quality certification—that means QuARK certification. Your job is to enter realms that have been submitted for certification and test their System integrity.”
System integrity, like checking all the laws of physics are consistent? Marke asked.
“No! not ‘system integrity’, ‘System integrity’. The integrity of the System!” The Stuark shouted at Marke, which Marke thought was pretty unprofessional.
I don’t know what that means. Marke calmly replied. Calm is always the best response to an emotional coworker (makes them look unreasonable).
“Oh please. It’s the big computer program that runs all the aspects of your life. Gives you a class, tracks your levels, quests, attributes. All that stupid stuff.” Stuark rolled their eyes so hard that Marke could hear it.
My last life had nothing like that outside of games. That comment was somewhat defensive, so Marke tried to quickly think of the next step of the conversation that would make him come out on top somehow, but he didn’t think of it in time.
Stuark’s voice was harsh and condescending. “If you haven’t learned what you need in order to do your job, that’s your own failing. Try being a professional and shut your mouth. Maybe if you listen more and talk less, you’ll pick up enough to squeak by.” Marke was about to object, but Stuark stood and interrupted. “I said shut up! And don’t go whining to HR about this either. I. Will. Ruin. You.” Stuark pointed a threatening finger at Marke.
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Angry and flustered, Marke could only turn his head, think about folding his arms, and scoff. As if.
Stuark sat down. “Your contract is for one thousand and one realms tested. You incarnate in a realm and try everything you can think of to break the System. You break the system, the realm fails certification. The realm fails certification, the client pays us later to try again. Profits go up with every System you break or cause someone else to break. Do you have any questions?”
Marke did have a question, yes. Wh-
“’What if I’m really stupid and I die in a client’s realm?’ you ask? Well, ‘incarnation’ is much cheaper than ‘re-incarnation’ so we can afford a few horrendous deaths on your part. That being said, incarnation isn’t free, so you are incentivized to avoid death. There is a pool set up for your incarnations, after one thousand and one realms, any remaining incarnations are credited to you as bonus compensation. If you finish with a negative balance in your incarnation pool then you default to the original consequence of whatever brought you in on this contract.” Stuark held up a paper and pantomimed reading some very small text. “DEATH put in his notes something about ‘the microbe scenario’. Sounds pretty awful.”
Marke tried again. But wh-
“What if I’m extra stupid and can’t break some dumb System? Well, I guess you die of old age, you use up an incarnation from your poll, and the realm gets certified. Up to you to decide if forcing a different death to try again is worth it to you, but don’t think you can just sit on your ass and wait out all one thousand and one realms—I won’t say how big your pool is, but it is smaller than that. Any other questions?”
Marke thought quickly, How-
“Great! Now for some on the job training. Your first realm is a freebie that we know will break because it was built by the boss’s boss’s boss’s idiot son. So-“ Stuark froze. “Oh, uh… Don’t repeat that. It would get us both in trouble in a big way. Tell you what, I’ll add a hundred incarnations to your pool if you promise to forget that.” Stuark sounded fairly nervous, so Marke took a moment to let the grey person sweat. Humph. Fine. But-
“Excellent! That’s a promise! And away you go, have fun!” Stuark slapped a big red button that was suddenly in the middle of the table.
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Marke opened his eyes to a realm of blue and green. Marke blinked. “Oh! Real eyes now! Nice.” He looked down at himself. A blocky torso sat on two brown-ish logs which were planted in a solid green plain. He looked up at a solid blue sky. “Ok… pretty simple graphics.”
A voice boomed out, so loud it shook him from his feet, and he fell to the ground. “WELCOME _PLAYERNAME_. CLASS SELECTION.” Marke wasn’t sure how the voice pronounced the underscores so clearly, but they were there.
Marke used his brown-ish stick arms to lever himself back up on his legs. He looked around. “Hello?” There was no response. “How do I select my class?” Marke held his arms up to protect his ears. Still no response. Marke walked in a circle with his stiff legs to see if there was some message somewhere or landmark. There was nothing.
“I have no idea what’s happening here. Oh well. Status?”
The voice boomed out again. “ERROR NO CLASS”. And with no more warning, the realm shattered.
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Marke opened his eyes again across from the grey Stuark. “And that’s pretty much the basics. Got it? Good! See you one thousand realms from now. Good luck!” Stuark pushed an even bigger red button that appeared on the grey table.