Tami’s face was squeezed into the crack of Joe's door even as he was pressing it closed. The furballs that she was cooing to until the last second of the door closing were snuggled fast asleep in their bed nest, surrounded by various pet-approved snacks in case they woke. Joe shook his head and leaned his back against the door with a full sigh of relief. All he wanted to do was collapse into the petless bed and sleep for a week. It felt like he’d been running frantically for days on end, but instead of a non-descript bathroom door, his was red and it beckoned with both demand and enticement.
Joe had things to do before he could rest. He knew that if he laid down in that bed with stat points unassigned, they would chase him in his dreams in spider form. If he’d read it in one LitRPG, he’d read it in two dozen of them. If you went to sleep with unspent stat points, you woke up to an emergency that left them unspent. If Joe wanted real rest, he needed to deal with the mechanics. He had to understand how best to move forward.
Joe paused with his hand on the door, shocked at what he’d thought and what it meant. Had he ever felt like he could move forward in life? He was a plodder. He’d learned to be a plodder as it was the only thing everyone agreed that he was good at. If he was going to cast himself in a book, he’d be a store clerk and not even worth the dialogue banter he liked to write. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t been ready to “get with the program” like they’d all wanted him to do. He hadn’t imagined himself as a main character.
He opened the red door and walked through it and into his dressing room. It looked just like it had the first time he’d materialized here. Same line of light-framed mirrors with chattering or fake-busy AI Actors. Same couple of racks of costumes, same dust in the corners, and probably the same donuts. He didn’t take one this time. He wasn’t that hungry. It seemed that he was the only different thing in the room.
Joe smiled at the AI Actor that was still in the form of the motel clerk and she gave him a thumbs up as the wrinkles on her face scrunched in such a way that made him think she might be smiling. He gave a fist bump to Jean and a shoulder bump to Tami as they passed each other on their way to their chairs. They passed each other as the girls came out of their door at the opposite end of the dressing room from his.
Even the kitten had her own station, where she was practicing cleaning herself, studying her poses from different angles. “You are going to name my character soon, right?” she asked him, and somehow he didn’t even lose a step.
“Any specific names you do or don’t want?” Joe asked her back, wondering where his ability to go with the flow had come from. It was probably that knot that was lodged between his shoulder blades.
“Just nothing dopey like Shadow or Blackie,” she told him with her little nose stuck up in the air, and Joe could tell it was a she from her higher voice and mannerisms that were clearer here in the dressing room. “I’m more than my color.”
“How about Hex?” Joe suggested.
“Oooh,” Tam said from two seats away, where she and her sister had settled. “I like it. It’s a little spooky and it has potential for expansion.” Joe didn’t know what that meant but he nodded like he did and that seemed to make the AIs at the mirrors relax a bit.
“Really?” the kitten preened. “Okay.”
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Joe sent a thumbs up down the line and people looked at him like he was a dog, and their approving gazes were the treats needed to train him to not crap on the carpet. Still, he smiled and tried not to roll his eyes as he settled in front of his mirror. He was him, but not the old him as much as before. Joe shook off that thought because the implications were alarming to his introverted self.
“Hello, Sugar,” Grace’s face greeted him from her sepia-toned image in his mirror.
“But,” Joe did a double-take. Jean was still primping several chairs to his left. He’d really thought that Grace was playing Jean but here they were two separate people? Entities? Whatever. “I could have sworn you were being used as Jean.”
“It’s a bit of recycling is all,” Grace brushed off Joe's surprise. “She’s got my model, but we are technically separate AIs. Think of us like twins of a sort.”
“That’s confusing,” Joe admitted to Grace what he wouldn’t have said to Jean and that was even more confusing.
“Okay, specifically, we were based on the same large language model, but my version was split from her about three months ago,” Grace explained, and Joe's tired mind begged him to find a way to get her to stop. “Then she went toward a different training route than I did. We have some core characteristics, but I assure you we think differently due to differing experiences during training."
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“However, that is not important,” she must have read Joe's face. “Was there a specific reason you were confused?”
“You both say Sugar as an endearment,” Joe grasped for something he could explain about it. How did he explain that it was a look in their eyes that unnerved him? How many AIs were going to have that look? Did it make him more or less secure around Jean and Grace? If Jean wasn’t a reuse of Grace, then the spider probably wasn’t either.
“I can delete that from my programming,” Grace offered simply. “Jean has already used it on camera, so it would be better to delete mine rather than hers.”
“That’s okay,” Joe waved it off, just wanting to get out of the conversation. “I should focus on progress, and then can I please get some sleep in that nice motel bed for a few hours?”
“Sure, Honey,” she drawled out, and Joe could see that the AIs completely misunderstood his discomfort about the endearment. Then again, did Joe understand it? Whatever. “We are currently cutting the footage for our scheduled time slot on the NOOB, so there’s downtime. That’s the newbie YouTube channel. You are scheduled for,” and she seemed to check something, which had to be some kind of affectation because they had instant access to this stuff, “nine hours of off-air time, but you may spend them on the set if it is more comfortable for you. I can put a timer on your helmet display if you’d like or you can just watch for the on-air lamp over the red door in your motel room.”
Joe looked around the dressing room, but as he’d suspected, there wasn’t a bed to be found. Maybe it was one of those upgrades they’d said he’d have access to. He didn’t remember much of all that. As he saw it, he could either bundle a bunch of extra costumes into a nest in the corner or he could go sleep in a real-ish bed in the motel set.
“Maybe we should just focus on dealing with my stats,” Joe rubbed at his forehead, trying to dispel the fudging line between reality and fantasy. “Then I can get some sleep.”
“Wonderful idea!” Grace bubbled with enthusiasm and pulled a bunch of notifications up on Joe's mirror. There were a lot. He’d gained some skills and a lot of experience and levels too. He had a total of 3,704 running xp to spend on upgrades. The first thousand xp he’d earned had taken him from level 1 to 2, and then when he’d hit 2000 total xp, he’d gone to level 3, and then at 3000, he’d hit level 4, so there were only a thousand xp between each level, which didn’t seem as insurmountable as he’d felt it to be sitting here yesterday. Yesterday? Joe shoved that bubble of concern down. It wouldn’t help him. He let the beast take over and ruthlessly deal with his character sheet.
Joe pulled up his stats, pleasantly surprised to find that he had 15 stat points to distribute. He did what he’d done with his first pack of stat points and dumped most of them into Click-Bait with 3 in Story Synthesis because he was liking how it was working to have the AI working with him instead of against him. He also popped just one tiny point into emotional resonance because now that he had some viewers, he wanted to keep them.
Actor Character Sheet
Name: Joe Cockran Denphry
Level: 4 Exp: 704/1000
CB – 17
DQ – 1
TA – 1
SS – 4
ER – 2
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Joe's brain nearly exploded.
“Ah, Honey,” Joe could vaguely hear Grace’s voice with her lightly admonishing tone. “You should take those things a little slower. Too much all at once will overwhelm the processors.”
She might have said more stuff, but Joe was sucking dust up off the floor like it was powdered sugar on the donuts. Joe didn’t know how he got there on the floor, and he wasn’t really sure how long he stayed there, but it wasn’t long enough to shake off his fatigue. Either that or stuffing eleven points into a single stat renewed his fatigue with a fat, whopping blob of whipped dreams on top.
“We’ve requisitioned some hormonal balancers into your pod soup, so your mind will clear up soon, Honey,” Grace’s voice floated around in the Tweety birds circling around Joe's head. Or were they Woodstocks? It was much more likely that Joe was in a Charlie Brown cartoon than Looney Tunes, though really was there much difference between Charlie Brown and Sylvester in terms of self-destruction? “They should kick in soon. Just give it a minute or two. Someone slip a cleaning bot over here. That dust can’t be good for him.”
Joe guessed Sylvester and the Coyote were at least supposed to be clever. Charlie Brown was just a sap. Was Joe clever? He felt a little more clever than he had a moment ago, but he was pretty sure he’d rather be Garfield than any of those. Too bad he’d been cast as Odie. Hands lifted his drooling face up off the floor and seemed to be dusting his face with a Roomba that had been painted with a maid outfit on it.
It took a few delirious minutes for Joe to be able to sit without the helping hands of his costars, but if he put his head down on the dressing table, he could make it work. Mostly.
“What the hell?” Joe garbled out.
“You bounced up two checkpoints in a major stat, Honey,” Grace told him gently and Joe was glad because her soft voice boomed around him like tympany drums. “Our new rule of thumb is to only put five stat points in anything at a time, okay, Honey?”
“Yeah,” Joe muttered, but his brain was coming back online, if a little fuzzy at the edges. Was that the drugs? He didn’t like the feeling. “Got it.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep and then go over some of your options,” Grace suggested, a reluctant tone telling Joe that he should bite the bullet and get it done tonight.
Joe thought of the books he’d dumped on the bed and how much he really wanted to fall asleep reading the first chapter. He thought of the video games and how he’d love to be the kind of guy who bit the bullet and gamed his nine hours of off time away instead of sleeping. He had the cans of energy drinks and energy bars to do it, but his mind wasn’t up to it. Even with all those riches, he was going to sleep a full night. Joe shook his head again to clear out the fuzz.
“Options,” Joe grunted, forcing his mind to work for him. “I said I’d upgrade you and I will, but what is most important for right now? There are a lot of big numbers I remember in that category, and I’m only going to be able to afford the basics.”
“A little less than basic, but subsistence for sure,” Grace practically hummed with excitement and maybe if Joe’d been looking up instead of having his head still buried in his arms, he’d have seen the whole of the AI cast perk up.
“We could all use a perk or two,” Joe thought he recognized the kitten’s voice, followed by a furry bump against his hand that didn’t have the effect that was intended, he was sure. Joe was just happy he didn’t flinch. Then again, he wasn’t sure he had the energy to flinch.
“I’d take a costume change,” someone said, “this one reeks of smoke,” and Joe realized it must be the motel clerk.
“An overall dialogue perk maybe,” Grace put in. “That would upgrade everyone, and we wouldn’t all be rushing him to spend all his points on us.”
The can of worms had been opened and there was a burst of “suggestions” from around Joe that fought against the drugs that were only now slurring his mental processes seriously.
“Maybe morning would be better,” Joe tried to say, but his voice slurred as surely as his mind.
“Oh, dear,” Grace’s voice came through the mist. “Maybe we should send a dose of counter-medication. He’s losing it.”
“No!” Joe tried to protest. This kind of drug mix was not comfortable or helpful. “No more drugs.”
“If you insist,” Grace sounded unsure.
He doesn’t need more drugs, the World AI’s voice flitted through Joe's head. Enough is enough. Some of you help him back to his bed at the motel so he can sleep it off.
----------------------------------------
There was some movement, and the next thing Joe knew was that he’d had a good solid night’s sleep and that was all those drugs were good for. When he blinked his eyes and got a look around him, he found himself bracketed by three furry little bodies, the blackest smudge of which was nudged right up against his cheek. It felt good. Without moving more than his eyeballs, he looked up to see that the sign for off-air was still lit above the red door, so he let his eyes drift back into sleep that also felt good.
Joe didn’t wallow in that marvelous time between dream and waking for too long because there were books to read and video games to play. Then he remembered that there were upgrades to buy and business to tend to and groaned himself awake. The light was still off-air, when he finally shifted enough for the furballs to let him up.
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Viewers – 979
It was kind of sweet that they’d given up their nest to sleep next to Joe in the other bed. He shoved down the thought that they were AIs and therefore couldn’t be sweet because he wanted a nice morning to start off the new day. Still, they hadn’t needed to paint the sweet picture since the cameras weren’t rolling. Joe found himself bending to pet each of them as they did their own stretching awake routines.
“Let’s go check out those upgrades,” Joe murmured into the silence of the room, casting one last longing look at the gym bag that was just stuffed with glorious time-off stuff that he didn’t really have time for yet. The instant awakened state that overtook them shattered the illusion like blinking open your eyes first thing in the morning. It didn’t bother Joe as much as he thought it might or should, but he shrugged it off. They crowded around the red door like real pets might have at the sound of a can opener. He soothed his urge to play with a package of donuts for breakfast and five minutes of plugging in a lot of electronics to charge. Just because he couldn’t do it today didn’t mean he couldn’t do it soon.
Joe was smiling as he opened the red door, a donut package crackling between his teeth and free hand. He was just taking a bite of his breakfast when the donuts disappeared altogether. Joe stepped back over the threshold of the doorway and noticed the opened package sitting on the scarred dresser of the motel room. He stepped into the dressing room, noting that even the dusting of powdered sugar on his fingers disappeared from one side of the doorway to the other. With a sigh, Joe walked past the stale donuts inside the dressing room door thinking that he’d rather have the prop donuts from the set when he was done than try to choke down another one of those.
Exp +100 (Quest: More Viewers!! Quest Complete!)
“Cue up the upgrades, Grace,” Joe told the mirror as he sat down. “Focus on the essentials that I can afford.”
“You got it, Honey,” Grace practically purred, and this time Joe was aware enough to realize that the whole roomful of actors held their breaths as he scanned the list. Then he had the odd notion that they didn’t need to breathe anyway, but he kept that to himself.
Acting Trainer Upgrade for your Assistant –
Affection Acceleration for your Onscreen Pets –
Backstage AIs Resource Upgrade –
Costar Skillset Upgrade –
Display Modification Options for your Assistant –
Dressing Room Upgrade (Bed) –
Dressing Room Upgrade (Catering) –
Onstage AIs Talent Increase –
Post-Production AIs Processor Upgrade –
Pre-Production AIs Budget Upgrade –
Special Effects AIs Trailer –
Star Trailer –
Stat Increase –
World AI Processing –
1000.
200/pet/level.
500.
100/Costar/level.
500.
200.
500.
1000.
750.
750.
1000.
1000/level.
1000/point.
1000.
“This is the brief list?” Joe asked. There were more, but those were the ones that caught his eye. Then again, when had the AIs he’d trained in high school ever known how to be brief?
“I felt the need to make sure you had options,” Grace fluttered her disembodied hands nervously, but Joe was doing mental math in his head.
“Why is the first one so expensive? What can you train if I buy it?”
“Right now, I would only be able to train you in basic skill increases. While it may seem cost-effective to just buy the skill increases instead, that will not always be the case. It is one of the higher-priced items, but I should warn you that it will increase in cost as you level,” Grace explained. “Buying it now would be cheaper in the long run. This way it will level with you. Eventually, I will be able to train even stats and you can see how costly those can get.”
“Would Jean and Tami count as my costars if I tried to upgrade them?” Joe asked.
“Yes, and so would your pets,” Grace added, and Joe had to adjust to that way of thinking.
Looking at it that way, it was more expensive than he wanted it to be and no matter how he looked at the numbers, he couldn’t possibly get everything he would want. Joe put his head in his hands and was glad he hadn’t tried to do this the night before.
“Maybe you really want to focus on the things that don’t have a per level cost,” Grace suggested. “Things like my training upgrade that will level with you.”
“Which ones do that?” Joe looked back at the list, and she highlighted a smaller subsection.
Joe swiped away the dressing room upgrades as it was cheaper and easier to just eat and sleep in motels out on the set. He swiped away the Star Trailer too. Joe almost swiped away the World AI upgrade, his finger poised, but drew back. If there was an affection upgrade for the World AI, he didn’t know that he could have resisted, but his costars would probably love him more for upgrading them than forcing it, so he swept that away instead. Joe still had more that he wanted than he could get.
“When do the prices increase?” Joe asked Grace.
“They’ll increase at level 10 if we get picked up by a network Tube, which is highly likely,” Grace explained again. “I could probably tell you more about the higher levels with a boosted researcher skill, but that’s another thousand and I didn’t want to look like a pig.”
“By the time I hit level 10, I’ll have 10,000 xp to spend overall though, right, so I can plan for the next few upgrades too,” Joe reasoned, planning his next few levels of xp with some highlighting of his options.
“You’ll have 9,000,” Grace corrected him. “You started out at level one, and each level costs 1000 xp to gain, so at 9,000 xp, you’ll hit level 10 and have almost no time to upgrade