Denny laid down in his high-end pod, loaded up the virtual earth (VE) he appeared inside Respectability Troubleshooter’s Warehouse 23 next to his setup terminal rather than his normal VE room. Getting here without having been here first would have been difficult, so when accepting the new position, he also had to agree to a 1-time start here.
all correct, but the building sat bland and unimaginative. An open room stretched before him with black terminals on two parallel white walls. In front of him, mounted to the wall was a ranking board, the 6 vacant rows indicated 0 user activity within BOB’s new playground. Other troubleshooters and many technicians walked around doing things, or talking to other people.
Denny turned around and saw a small stage with a group of people talking on it. The only two people he knew in the warehouse, were both on the stage, they were the ones who interviewed him for the position. He recognized Director Kamila, the boss and head troubleshooter, and Monty, the leader of Denny’s team. The other people on stage with her all had the check mark above their emblem that denoted them as leads, like Monty, in House Respectability.
Looking down at his new uniform, everything seemed to be in order. He took a deep breath and unnecessarily smoothed it out. “I can do this, I’m going to be awesome,” He said to himself. He was a troubleshooter now. It was similar to his old uniform, simple, with House Respectability colors, baby blue with lavender trim, his name and title a small patch over his left breast up front with his new server and troubleshooter over the right, his current emblem large on back. Denny’s personal emblem consisted of the new team logo, which Monty must have chosen, with his psychic affinity inside, and inside that was his gatherer specialization which was the position he was hired for. There were 6 possible affinities and 6 possible specializations. Affinities were permanent, but his specialization could change from playground to playground, Denny only ever worked as a gatherer.
Conversations took place all around the warehouse. It was too much general noise for Denny to pick up any specific exchange though. Unlike Denny, most everyone here was older and likely more seasoned. These teams of troubleshooters were only assembled for new playgrounds or large expansions. Denny was experienced in several playgrounds, but this was his first opportunity to get in at the start of one. Denny watched as each of the leads went to their own team’s staging area.
Kamila stayed on the platform, “Eyes and ears here everyone!” Kamila announced into the din as she put a hand on the white podium. “The new world opens up at 10:00, so we don’t have long. BOB didn’t release much information about this next one. We know that it’s going to be based in an earlier time period. This means lower technology and probably fewer affinity boosters. We’re going to be relying on gatherers and crafters to supply our teams with boosters as early as possible. Explorers, combatants, and support must bring back everything; I can’t stress that enough! Merchants, remember to note where valuable items come from, we will need that knowledge if we want to get ahead. Close combatants, you’re going to need to be especially careful in there. You won’t have the type of support that you’re used to in some of BOB’s other worlds. Each of you knows your team designation, talk to your team leader if you have any questions. Then get ready to hit launch.”
Denny walked over to team 4’s area as Monty stepped to the front of the group. “Alright everyone, I’m Monty, your team leader.” He placed his hands behind his back and looked over the small team. He was a good bit older than Denny, with his silver peppered beard, rectangular glasses, and receding hairline. He stood just a few inches taller than Denny, but his arms and legs were much thicker. He clearly set preferences to be built in a high-end pod like Denny’s. “Each leader has a different attunement and specialty. I’m primal and explorer. The 18 of us, like every other team, have 3 squads. We are fortunate enough to have: Primal 1, Martial 2, and Psychic 3. We are starting to the south. Any questions?”
“Do we know the exact starting parameters? What happens if we’re separated?” Asked a slight, mousy looking girl with a martial combatant insignia on the back of her uniform.
Monty nodded, “Ok Amelia, I can answer those questions. We know some, but not everything. What we do know: we set this warehouse up so that House Respectability could join playground 23 early. We have 6 teams with 3 squads each, the maximum for each house. We know that each squad must be made up of people with the same affinity. We were able to group the squads as teams so each team should start together.” Monty brought his hands from behind his head and scratched his hair with both hands before continuing, “as far as if BOB pulls a fast one and we’re separated. After you finish your first shift, we’ll all report back here and we’ll get it worked out then. Any other questions?”
The group stood around silently glancing at each other. Monty barely looked at them all before saying, “Perfect. You’re all professionals and shouldn’t need to ask anything else anyway. Let’s get started.” So saying, Monty turned away from the group and walked straight to his station. “5 minutes to 10:00 everyone. Get to your stations." Then he started it up and disappeared.
A few people began talking to each other. Denny didn’t know any of his fellow troubleshooters and peeled off to begin his starting process as well. As he walked to his station he glanced around and saw that most of the other groups were still discussing stuff. He shook his head. After standing around for a bit without direction, he placed his hand on his personal, yet completely standardized, black terminal to load up the new playground. Upon interacting with the terminal, the room disappeared and simple white text on a black background appeared in front of him.
Which Playground would you like to load up?
Playground 17 (12 days remaining before deletion) House Respectability
Playground 23 (Unopened) House Respectability (Troubleshooter)
He mentally selected playground 23 without even considering restoring his profile at playground 17. As per BOB’s rules, a person could only switch playgrounds once a year, at most. Since you restarted when you did and lost your old profile staying often proved a better option. New playgrounds did create new opportunities, and not all playgrounds were equal nor were the houses equal in the various playgrounds.
Please Wait
Joining parameters not met 9:57 – 0 other psychic affinity members ready
And so, Denny waited 3 minutes in an expanse of ever-shifting colors. It seemed unending, though with a time countdown and other psychic affinity members counting up he knew it would be soon. Finally, he found himself moved to a sterile white room with 5 others.
Joining parameters met 10:00 – 5 other psychic affinity members ready
All present psychic affinity members must choose a separate specialty
They all still wore their uniforms from the warehouse. Denny only recognized 2 of the others, Director Kamila, and a young woman from his squad with Monty whose name Denny didn’t know. A question appeared in front of Denny.
Present psychic squad must select a team to join with House Respectability. which team are you part of?
Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, Team 4, Team 5, Team 6
“Before anyone touches anything,” Kamila began, “I see that we have 2 people from each of the Psychic 3 squads.” She took a deep breath as though to calm herself before continuing, “it seems that BOB played a trick on us. This is now the new Psychic 1 squad. Those of you originally not on this squad will have to live up to your role. We are the head squad of team 1 and we will be starting in the center. Let me do all selections until I tell you otherwise.” Another display popped up in front of Denny before disappearing.
You have selected Team 1. There are 0 squads associated with this team so far and 0 psychic squads associated with your preselected location so far. Do you wish to be part of Team 1
Yes No
With this change of teams, Denny realized he wouldn’t have to deal with Lead Monty being anywhere near him. Kamila breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank BOB for that. It looks like the squads won’t be able to unwittingly double up and overbalance any of the teams.” Another display appeared, a small circle appeared in front of Denny with 6 options, one for each specialty. Denny refocused on what Director Kamila had to say, “we’re going to start with the original members of the Psychic 1 squad choosing their specialties then we’re going to move on to Psychic 2 and finally Psychic 3. At the end we’ll see what we have.”
Support quickly blacked out, as did gatherer, then combatant, and finally crafter. “Um… Excuse me,” Denny said to the group at large, but more specifically at Director Kamila. “I’m supposed to go gatherer but that’s not an option. Only merchant and explorer are left.”
A thin woman with black braids nodded to Denny’s words. “Same thing I’m seeing. I was supposed to be Psychic 2’s gatherer.”
Kamila nodded, completely composed through the situation, “That’s fine. We’ll just have to go from here. Alayna, which spot would you rather, merchant or explorer?”
She shrugged and scrunched up her face, “I don’t really care. Either way you know. They aren’t what I’m best at but I’m good, so it doesn’t matter.”
Kamila turned to look straight at Denny. Her brown eyes as focused as ever, “Do you have a preference, Dennis?”
Everyone turned and waited. He paused a second, not because of the question itself but because all the attention unnerved him. “Uh, yeah I originally applied to be either an explorer or a gatherer, so I suppose I’d rather explorer.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Kamila nodded and then looked away. “Alayna will be our merchant and Dennis our explorer.” As she spoke Denny selected explorer, at the same time merchant blacked out.
House Respectability has preselected Team 1’s location as Center
A quick transition occurred as everyone disappeared, the room shrunk and then a new space expanded. The six of them stood in an open red and green glade at the top of a small hill. The nearest trees were new growth, young, short, thin. “Everyone, please take the time to go over your character sheet, then we’ll get started. Alayna, Dennis, neither of you were in official briefings for your current specialty. Alayna, we want all of our merchants to have a history skill to help gather information. Dennis, we want our explorers to have a map sharing ability. Now go,” she waved her hand signaling everyone to carry on.
Denny opened his character sheet.
Name: Dennis Powell
Affinity: Psychic Attunement: 3 Specialty: Explorer
Abilities: 1 Ability Points: 25
Draw Map Level - Cost 0
This is your default ability. You may draw maps for your personal use. Everywhere you go your map is automatically updated.
Limitation: Explorer specialty
He still retained his normal affinity attunement which transferred from playground to playground. After that came a list of abilities that Denny could select from. Each cost a different number of ability points (AP). Since he had to select a map one first, he filtered those out and looked through the beginning map abilities. There were more map abilities than he desired to count. Some dealt with what he would find, others with what he could share and to whom. Denny selected 2 map abilities, spending over half of his AP.
Periodic Updates Level 1 Cost 7
Permanently select up to 1 individual to automatically update their map with any features you can share through other means. This update will automatically occur once every 24 hours.
Limitation: Psychic affinity with Attunement 2 & Explorer specialty
Friendly Terrain Level 1 Cost 6
You may choose to share the terrain features from your map with someone within 3 meters of you once per 12 hours. Both you and the selected individual must agree to you sharing your map with them.
Limitation: Explorer specialty
With only 12 AP left Denny really needed to decide what to do. He had considered being able to share additional features, like buildings, gathering deposits, lairs, and more. The issue was, if he spent enough AP to share those things, then he wouldn’t have enough to actually find any of them himself. Instead he relied on sharing the terrain and describe things afterwards so people could track down whatever he discovered.
He picked up 3 more abilities for himself. They wouldn’t do everything, but he felt that they were a solid start for an explorer on such a base world. He still had 1-point left, so he upgraded his cheap skill. He didn’t need to spend all his AP, but he felt that it would help more in the long run.
Detect Lair Level 1 Cost 5
You are able to detect any basic lair that you pass within 3 meters of. Upon detecting a lair your map will be marked with a lair symbol.
Limitation: Either Combatant, Explorer, or Support specialty.
Detect Ore Level 1 Cost 5
You are able to detect any basic ore deposit that you pass within 3 meters of. Upon detecting an ore deposit your map will be marked with an ore deposit symbol.
Limitation: Either Explorer or Gatherer specialty
Map Notes Level 1 Cost 1
You are able create up to 5 notes on your map. Each note may consist of up to 15 characters. These notes will mark your map and will easily expand for you.
Limitation: Psychic affinity with Attunement 1
Map Notes Level 1 Cost 1 Upgrade 1
You are able create up to 10 notes on your map. Each note may consist of a label of up to 15 characters with an expanded note of up to 50 characters. These notes will mark your map and will easily expand for you.
Limitation: Psychic affinity with Attunement 1
Prerequisite: Map Notes level 1
He really wanted to get a few more things, especially an ability that would let him share his notes, but they would have to wait. Kamila, the combatant, and the gatherer stood talking to each other as Denny finished. He walked up to them, “I picked 2 methods to share my map. Both are limited to terrain for now though.” His current map didn’t have much. He glanced up at it on his Linked Overlay (LO) and saw that it only had the small clearing on the hill they started at.
At his interruption, they all turned to look at him. “Good,” Kamila said, “we were just discussing our plans. For now, Dennis, I’m going to have you go with Mitchel and Alexander,” she pointed first to the gatherer, then the combatant, “to discover what we’re working with. Just make a quick circuit around this hill and be back within the hour. We’ll decide what we’re doing once you get back.”
Denny looked at his two companions as they walked away. Mitchel stood a hand taller than Denny. He had short, tawny hair and a spotty goatee. He wore glasses and was probably 15 or 20 years older than Denny. Alexander, surprisingly for a combatant, was a head shorter than Denny. Short, straight dark hair, dark complexion and stocky build Alexander reminded Denny of a wolverine.
“It’s just Alex,” The short man said glancing at the other two.
“Mitch.”
“I’m Denny,” He responded. “So, are we looking for anything specific or just scouting out the area?”
Alex immediately picked up the conversation. “Kamila wants to know if this is a viable area to setup for now, or if we should try to move immediately. We already know there is some wood, but she wants to know what else is here.”
Denny nodded along, and then took the time look around the new world. The hill he stood on was open coated in ground cover with red flowers that grew just past the top of his ankle. He could barely make out a group of mountains to the north east. There were more hills in all directions, but they didn’t look too steep, even though they were tall. He had trouble seeing past all the trees and bushes to the valley below, still he gathered the impression that it would be wide enough to be comfortable to make a path through once the brush was cleared. The trees mostly stood between 5 and 10 feet tall, narrow enough that his hands could circle their trunk. He didn’t know what type of trees they were, but they had needles, so he figured some type of pine. “Well, I can locate lairs and ore. That should help some.”
Mitch instantly stopped and turned to look at Denny, “Really? You chose to detect lairs and ore? No wonder you were put in group 3 rather than group 1. Sure, both of those are useful later. For troubleshooting we need stone and wood and especially water. Fortunately, like Alex said we do have a decent bit of wood here. It’s not the best but I can’t gather much better yet anyway.”
As Mitch turned away, Alex shrugged, “It’s not that big of a deal. We can make enough with wood for now. Besides this is just a starting location and knowing about ore and a good lair will really help us find a better area to set up permanently. Plus, we’re in a nice lush area, how difficult will it be to find water?”
Mitch grunted, but didn’t respond further. Denny thought about it for a second, “You don’t have a detect stone ability, Mitch? Don’t you need one to pick up the ability to identify it?”
He turned to glare at Denny, “I picked up Identify Trees first just to make sure that I could harvest these. I couldn’t and had to buy an upgrade called Harvest Young Trees.” Denny winced; upgrades were always a little pricey. “It’ll serve us well in the future because I’ll be able to gather lots before others can poach them, but it limited me on the stone. I could only afford Harvest Stone.”
Denny nodded, “Well, not much we can do then. Stone has a higher chance to be visible than ore at least, like trees do.”
Mitch rolled his eyes, but then shrugged. “True, plus our crafter should be starting with wood and dirt anyway. We can move up from there. And digging down will eventually yield stone. It’s really the optimal deposits that I was hoping to find. Optimal tree deposits would be nice too.”
They continued down the hill. Nothing really stood out. Neither of Denny’s detection abilities went off. They circled the hill and found more of the same. Denny decided to let his abilities do the work for him as he walked in a circle. Instead of really paying attention, he opened his inventory to glance at his new items. There were many types of inventory in BOB’s worlds. Mostly, things physically existed and needed to be interacted with on the same level as the real world. Even coins were transferred similarly to the real world, though since that was all digital anyway there weren’t any physical coins or bills. On the other hand, there was a system inventory. This stored the few things that BOB gave each individual on a special basis. When you first entered a world, BOB gave everyone some random items that suited them.
Simple Dowsing Rod
This basic rod doubles the distance of any detect skills
Limitation: Psychic affinity & Explorer specialty
Simple Walking Stick
This basic stick increases user’s speed by 10% and makes walking up or down inclines 10% less likely to result in accidents.
Limitation: Explorer specialty
Tiny Sample Pouch
This pouch fits three samples of any material that you discover.
Limitation: Explorer specialty
As soon as he equipped anything from this special inventory it wouldn’t be able to be put back. The dowsing rod took up two hands. Though he could hold it without using it in one. If he had a rope or a belt, he could put it somewhere. For now, though, he’d either need to hold it or leave it. Since they weren’t looking for anything specific Denny just left everything there. As he exited his inventory and began paying better attention, Denny heard something off to one side. It barely registered over the sound of the birds and other wildlife, “Do you hear that?”
The other two stopped to listen then Mitch smiled for the first time, “Sounds like water to me. I guess we got lucky since you didn’t pick detect water.” Neither Alex nor Denny responded to Mitch. The three of them walked towards the water in silence.
It wasn’t a large source, just a small creek between two different hills about a kilometer and a half away from where they started. Both of the nearby hills had more young trees like their original hill had, except without the meadow on top, “It won’t be difficult for me to harvest enough trees from this hill to get us some space for the night. Alex and I will stay here while I harvest, Denny, go get Kamila and the others.” Suiting action to words, Mitch pulled out an axe from his inventory.
“You going to be ok with him?” Denny asked Alex as he looked around. The red flowers still covered the ground hear, but more of the bushes bore fruit. He thought he recognized blueberries but wasn’t sure, he had yet to take an ability that would let him know. Sometimes BOB changed things. Even if it looked like a normal safe food it was best to have an ability that would let you know for sure.
Alex chuckled a little and waved his hand in a pushing motion, “Yeah, it’ll be fine. I have a set of javelins I can use to hunt with in the meantime. Not the best, but then again usually combatants are hunting monsters not food.” Alex proceeded to utilize his inventory, putting on some leather armor over his single piece uniform and pulling out a quiver of javelins.
Denny gave an insouciant salute before pulling out his walking stick and heading back to the group. He pulled up the map to his upper right periphery. He put a note in his map at the top of the hill they were setting up on.
Starting Camp
Where we are setting up camp for the first night.
That just about stretched his note ability to it’s max. He could mark down 9 more of them, but that’d be it. Denny chose to take a slightly different route back, hoping to uncover more area. Since he walked alone, he paid as much attention as possible, ready to run if necessary.