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When my vision spun back to life, I was sitting in a quiet, gray lobby with my now standard, 0% variance avatar. MMO Weekly magazines were spread out across the coffee tables around me and soft cords from the game's soundtrack crackled from the intercom. It was a good number of seconds before the status update hit, informing me of my avatar's fate:

You have died.

Player moved to: DDO Employee's lobby

Respawn Timer: 14 Minutes remaining before lockout expiration

The lobby was, I had to admit, somewhat less than I had hoped for. I could see corridors branching away that appeared to lead to virtu-offices and specialized breakrooms. The magazines were mostly dated, monotonous things, most of which reviewing DDO and providing dazzling compliments or scathing criticisms of the game. The criticisms always seemed somewhat ironic to me, as the game was, like most, updated, integrated and maintained by massive AI with extensive databases and algorithms, but there was something about human nature I supposed that made us always want to pick things apart. Especially things that were riding the borders of cutting edge possibility.

Pulling up the menu, I opened a line to Matti, 'Matti, can you look up who my Supervisor and Employee Mentor is supposed to be and tell me if either one is here at Headquarters with me?" 

It was some seconds before her attention transferred over to my request, and as her voice came on the line I could still the faint crackle indicated she was processing a number of other functions at the same time, "I'm glad you finally decided to check in and take your work more seriously. Hold on, Maggie, I'll run a search and network to DDO Admin." 

I continued to glance through the magazines as I waited, noting that a number of the pages were stuck together or torn. As in the game, it appeared that the company went a bit overboard when it came to their overt realism settings. Finally, after a good five minutes real-time, Matti's voice crackled back on, "Ok. Your supervisor is in. Her name is Alley Bonowitz and her AI has instructed you to proceed into Office 2b immediately. I'm highlighting your route now."

Matti's voice crackled out and I could hear it as she hard disconnected from our conversation. Still, the holographic red line was overlayed across my vision and I had no problem following it down the hallway and to a solid oak door to Ally's office. There were no name tags posted or directions anywhere, newcomers apparently being expected to pull any directions from their AI interface rather than wander around the barren halls. The whole set up gave the impression of being incredibly modern if it did also strike me with an air of impersonality and dismissal. 

I knocked three times and waited for a moment. When no reply came I tested the door and opened it just a crack, peeking in. "Um... Miss. Bonowitz? I was told that you wanted to see me?"

It was still some moments still before she looked up from her tablet, glancing at me and then quite obviously reading my status information before she decided to speak. "Yes, I was informed that you had checked in... Magpie. I'm glad you decided to come straight here. Please... sit down." She nodded to a hard chair sitting across from her, facing the antique wooden desk she was working on.

I moved to take my seat, fidgeting a bit as I settled and waited for her to continue. She ended up shoving aside the tablet in front of her and pulling another from the desk, scrolling down what looked to be a long list of information. "I see," she murmured, staring at the screen for a good few moments longer than was comfortable. "I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you, Magpie, really. But, I have to be honest here, most interns don't last here for very long. It's stressful work and to say the pay here is bad would be a vast understatement." She shuffled through her notes a bit more, "Still, it looks like you're supplementing your income through the live-stream option, and for those with thick skin it can actually turn out to be a pretty good deal. I highly recommend continuing down that route so long as you're here unless you decide you absolutely can not take it for a moment longer."

She paused, seemingly waiting for my response, so I simply nodded and told her, "Yes, Ma'am."

Satisfied, "Very well. I also can see that you have zero experience with online games of any kind. Our HR algorithms seemingly prefer that, but to me, it's more of a hassle than a perk. I'll tell you what, you're working for dirt cheap anyway. And I do mean that literally. So I'm going to go ahead and suspend any official work assignments for two weeks. Instead, I'm going to need you to spend that time linking up with your mentor and orienting yourself to the game. I'm assigning one to you and updating your DDO friends list now." She seemed to drag something from her tablet into her player menu, and after a few moments I was notified of the update:

Friend Added:

Blinky McBlinkerton: Dark Elf Warrior

(Online) 

"His party needs some support, so you'll want to prioritize learning some Aura skills," she continued as I was reading. "Also, I should tell you that our group has something of a," she coughed into her hand, "friendly rivalry with Olivia across the hall. You'll find that in-game she's Queen Olivia McBeal. And if she finds you in-game she's going to do everything in her power to make your life a living hell."

My eyes widened as I immediately recognized the name. Queen McBeal was in control of Anthera as well as a good third of Fae territory. She had streamed a bit some years back, but her real claim to fame was her rise to power. Two weeks after her stream stopped, she had somehow found a way to murder a half-dozen nobles, including the former king, and, more impressively, convinced the staggered city that she should be made ruler in his place. There were rumors that it was an epic quest or some company-driven plot event, but given the level of contention I was seeing with the Boss Lady here, I had a feeling that there was more to it than anyone had guessed. 

Alley noted my eyes widening and nodded, "That is, of course, company internal information and you will not be mentioning it in any of your streams," pointedly. "Even so, I don't have the heart to set the caged bird free only to watch it fly into the jaws of the lion." She nodded to herself. "Anyway, that will be all. Your respawn timer should be ready by now, and you need to be finding Blink."

I got up slowly as she went back to her tablets, hesitantly taking that as a dismissal. Still, as I backed toward the door, it was no sooner than I put my hand on the nob and started to leave when I heard her voice pick up again, "Oh, and Magpie?"

I jumped a couple of inches and turned back around, "Yes."

She glanced up at me, "dump a couple credits into the game already and buy some goddamned clothes."

I stammered, "Y... yes, Ma'am." To the top of her head as she didn't bother waiting for my reply. Her hand flicked a few times, motioning for me to go.

Scrambling out the door, I immediately went to log back into DDO. Supervisors where, it turned out, just as bad as they were made out to be, and I had no desire to risk any more parting comments before I could get away. The transition from the Employee Lobby, thankfully, was entirely seamless and it felt like I had barely blinked before the familiar Portal Stones rose around me. 

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The warning light of my stream blinked from red to yellow to green, letting me know that I was once again fully live and unedited as I inspected my Avatar. Thankfully, respawning took me back up to full hitpoints and removed the crippling debuf that I had received just before I had died from shock.  My skin was even absolutely pristine, clean like I had just taken a warm bath with scented oils and lavenders. The contrast with the pain I remembered from my last few seconds in this place and the blissful sense of being refreshed and vitalized made a strange contrast in my mind. It was like I couldn't decide whether to shy away from the game entirely or stretch out and bask in the evening air. 

Feeling torn for only a moment before shrugging and setting it aside, I went ahead and pulled up the Auction screen. "Well," I said out loud, "I've been instructed to buy some clothes. Anyone have any suggestions on what I should get?"

I pulled up the live chat as I browsed for a moment, and read:

BubbaNoTepp:  You should buy a pacifier

BubbaNoTepp:  Because you obviously suck.

EvolvedApe3512:  And a bib. In case all that dick you suck spills out.

BubbaNoTepp is typing...

I quickly blocked both of them and turned off the chat. "I... think I'll figure it out on my own this time," I mumbled as I managed to pull up the selection of clothes without an associated Armor Class. I tried to focus on my shopping to get the troll comments out of my mind.

Settling quickly on some very basic starter gear, I found a silk blouse, corset, and mini that all had +CHA associated with them. It turned out that CHA gear was a good five times cheaper than anything with +WILL on it, considering it was a junk stat for most classes I supposed. And it turned out with those three garments alone, considering my innate Nymph bonuses, would bump my CHA all the way up to a solid 16.

"I wanted to avoid paying for anything that might be an in-game bonus," I chided the air, "But if we can't be mature about it then I guess I'm going to have to make some allowances here." Pressing the confirm button and the "Pay with Credits" button the items appeared instantly in my mail. 

Pressing the confirm button and the "Pay with Credits" button the items appeared instantly in my mail. Dragging them directly into my shirt, belt, and pants equipment slots, they coalised on my body within a matter of seconds. Finely spun fabric feeling surprisingly opulant against my skin. More surprisingly still, the Corset didn't pinch or squeeze, as I imagined it would in real life, but instead just gave me a strange feeling of support. Like I was being gently hugged by the thick fabric around my waist.  

Switching to the third-person camera for a moment, I decided I liked how the long, almost-white braid of my hair contrasted with the white and black hues of the clothes. The white of the blouse really brought out the pale, porcelain glow of my skin, and the dark blacks of the corset and skirt seemed to enhance the glowing purple hue of my eyes. 

I considered shoes for a moment but decided against it. I decided that I loved the feel of the grass at my feet, every step as comfortable as walking on fine satin sheets, and moreover the shoeless aesthetic seemed better for my Nymph anyway. At least until I found something in the world with stats I couldn't pass up. 

Instead, I called it good and moved on to the next task I had been assigned. Pulling up my friend's list, I found Blink and pulled him up on my map. I wasn't really familiar with the area he was in, and it took me some time to figure out where the nearest portal was I could access and plot a route out from there. If my Int had been higher, I knew that I could have had it all drawn out for me automatically, but such was the price for slacking in school. And I found that doing it the long way was actually kind of fun.

I tried to voice connect to him but the connection failed, meaning he was probably already talking to someone, so I went ahead and used the Stones to jump over to his current map. I noted with some trepidation that it was down in the Underlands, but I figured that if I ran into anything nasty I could just wait by the stones and send him a message. 

As the new map faded in, I was immediately grateful I had known to turn on low-light vision in my settings. Incandescent mushrooms gave off a slight hint of light, growing from the cavern walls and floor, but even with my enhanced senses, it was barely enough for me to make out where I was.  The Stones here were placed in the center of a medium sized cavern, with the main tunnel branching off north, some 30x30 wide, and a number of smaller paths branching out from there and the southwestern corner of the cavern. 

I kept the map with my route in the corner of my vision as I took one of the smaller paths to the southwest. It tunneled around for a few minutes, winding more south, and then up, and then east, but overall there were no noticeable monsters in my way and it turned out to be a surprisingly boring journey. 

There were a few, foot long trapdoor spiders in the walls after I had traveled about a mile, discernable from the dim glow of their eyes and the fine, crystalline webbing around the edges of the false walling they hid behind. I managed to steer clear of them still, though, as I knew that their aggro zone only extended about a foot from their holes and they weren't designed to chase their prey outside of that radius. They might have been a threat if I hadn't known what to look for or if I was relying on the dim flicker of a torch to light my way.

As I approached the edges of Blink's radius, I half expected to hear the sounds of fighting. Assuming that he and his party were grinding something or other down in these pits. Rather than screams and clashing metal, however, what I actually heard where the sounds of voices and the deep baritone laugh of a man who had just put another man in his place. The sound, really, would have seemed more at home in an inn, or maybe a college party, than it did there in the deep recesses of the earth.

As I turned the corner I waved, my hands in the air, and I put on my most dazzling, disarming smile. I belted out, "Sorry to interrupt! I'm here for Blinky - he's supposed to be my..." before I even had a chance to process what I was seeing.

Now, dear reader, I'm not sure I can do any justice in describing the scene that I had just stumbled into. But let me try, for argument's sake, as the sight there before me, stopping dead as I jumped out and shouted out my hello, is quite critical to your understanding of my story. And despite my own inadequacies as a narrator, for which I am truly bereft, I feel like you should understand the first impression I made on my new, assigned Mentor.

You see, there in front of me, where two Dark Elf men hunched over a tiny stone table and a handful of cards, while a third, somewhat less fully clothed dark elf male was leaning against the wall by my feet. But, instead of cards, his hands were filled with the (somewhat exaggerated) assets of a dark elf woman, wearing the ruffled remnants of what could only be a villager's simple smock. 

I opened and closed my mouth a few times as the four turned to stare at me. A dead, sullen silence descended in my wake. "Blinky... I'm here," I stammered, "He's supposed..."

The man on the floor grinned up at me, grabbing himself indecently, and was the first of the company to speak, "Well, you found him. Care for a turn?"

His words took the wind from my sails, and my fading attempts at speech sputtered off into shocked mumbling. A thousand things crossed my mind then - I should have sent him a message first, how glad I was I had bought some actual clothes, disbelief that the fuckboy there at my feet was supposed to be the experienced mentor who needed a support class. Unfortunately, the one thing that didn't go through my mind was the idea that, rather than standing there staring like a child who just walked in on her parents, I should probably be apologizing and running away. But some lessons you really only can learn from experience, I guess.

He blinked at me for a moment, standing up. "Well, that's that then," he said, buckling his belt and reaching for the scabbard he had leaned against the wall. He was quick, quicker even than anything I had remembered seeing in my videos, and his hand had darted up and forward before I even noticed him move.

"You see, I really can't stand voyeurs," the words rung in my ears as the first warnings of pain blossomed through my stomach. "Especially ones who act all innocent and turn their noses up at good, wholesome fun."

I tried to speak then, as my body shook and only started realize that it was hurt. Tendrils of pain blossoming and exploding from my belly up through my arms and legs, into my startled brain. And, finally, the words I had been searching for came back to my lips. "I'm... your train.... you're assigned as..."

49 piercing Damage received from longsword.

HP: -9/40

Crippling Injury: Torso

1/2 HP removed in a single blow!

CON:  Saving against shock

Failed.

" my company mentor..."