1              Soul Bound

1.1            Finding her Feet

1.1.7          An Extreme Response

1.1.7.17       Never break the illusion

CEO’s Office, XperiSense HQ, Huabo Road, Guokeng, Quanzhou, Fujian, China

From: “Chen Rushi, creative lead” <[email protected]>

To: “Feng Akechi, CEO” <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Hands off Kafana

Hey Akechi,

You asked to be notified if anything strange cropped up, related to the #1 party by global reputation on Covob.

You remember the Bone Sword that Wang Tianqing put in the game as the grand prize in last year’s live-coverage tournament, in order to boost viewer numbers? I said at the time it was a bad idea.

Well as you’re probably aware, Kullervo used it on Kafana, and in the past that’s always resulted in the permadeath of the victim.

What I’d like to bring to your attention is a conversation that just happened in my favourite area of Covob, where we’re planning on holding a special Halloween event in October.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

: link to record

It looks like Kafana’s vessel is planning on fighting back with tactics we never even considered being used. If we want to allow it, there’s some preparatory coding that will need doing in the next hour, but that might constitute a personal intervention so I’m passing it to you to decide.

Rushi.

PS Have you tried this Burrow thing in the news? They’re right, it really does help with creative thinking. Go visit their Grand Library when you find a spare hour.

From: “Feng Akechi, CEO” <[email protected]>

To: “Chen Rushi, creative lead” <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Hands off Kafana

Thanks Rushi.

We cannot allow even a whiff of favouritism. If we change rules to save even one character, the consequences could be disastrous for the company. It isn’t worth it, even to save the character with the closest Vessel integration we’ve yet seen. There will always be another one.

That said, you’re right that this is a new situation on a new world. The rules are not yet defined, and we shouldn’t artificially restrict what would be good plot by laziness or lack of forethought.

Go ahead with the preparations to give the expert systems a full range of options on how to respond, but leave it up to their collective judgement on which option to pick. Caution them that this isn’t a one-off decision; the precedent set here must be even handedly applied to all future players finding themselves in similar situations. Do whatever will make for good, consistent world building. In the end, our selling point isn’t our technology - it is the quality and integrity of our stories. The users have to feel that the world they are immersed into is as real as their own, with its own laws. Never break the illusion.

Akechi.