"Oh shit, they actually did respond."
He read the message again, feeling a bit shocked from how fast they replied. Improving the notifications tab would be a great addition to the site but it shouldn’t be enough for them to respond so quickly. And a beta tester? He wasn’t sure what that was about. He read the message again.
Hey Arthur! We here at the Dev team heard you loud and clear! We definitely haven't been using the notification tab enough. We actually have a new feature we're about to implement that solves all your problems and comes in one, perfect package. Would you be willing to Beta test it?
- Head Developer, Earl Min
YES NO
He genuinely wanted help staying motivated to write, and that seems like it was included in the package.
He thought about all the unfinished manuscripts that he had saved and all the times he quit a description mid sentence, frustrated because his hands couldn't keep up with his brain. He thought about all the little kids he wanted to bring into his world- Wait no, that sounded strange. Arthur thought about all the times he spent as a kid, being lost in a book and wishing he could let others experience the worlds he created in his head.. He thought about all the Patreon money that he could have been making in his free-time... Yea that decided it.
"Yessir, sign me up!"
He clicked YES, closing the window covering the screen and bringing up another.
You have been selected to utilize our new intuitive user interface (IUI).
It will gather information based on your previous actions and queries, and point you in the right direction to achieve your goals. Read the Terms and Conditions here. Activate interface?
YES NO
Asking to gather his data would usually be a no but he did agree to beta test. He didn't bother clicking on the link to the terms and conditions, beta testing and not giving them the data wouldn't make sense . He clicked yes once more and...nothing happened. The fuck? Oh wait, no. There was another notification circle, but on the support tab this time. He hovered the mouse over it and it opened.
The "Knowledge Base" tab was highlighted in purple and blinking. Arthur figured there's only one thing you can do with a suspiciously blinking button. He clicked it.
Welcome To The Knowledge Base!
Click here for our Writing Challenge update!
Arthur felt a bit impressed. Even if they had it in the works for a while the user interface definitely felt a bit more intuitive. He guessed this update would be the part that helped with his writing? He felt a little hopeful as he clicked on the link. A logo with a feather crossing a sword popped up, along with an entire page of words.
Quill crossing Sword [https://cdn4.iconfinder.com/data/icons/video-game-items-concepts/128/sword-pen-quill-3-512.png]
Welcome!
To help our authors, new and old, with putting pen to paper, we've designed a new interactive user interface (IUI) that can be used on both the King's Path website and mobile app, and we've combined its Beta launch with the new Writing Challenge Updates!
"Updates you say, as in more than one?"
Yes!
You get an update! You get an update! You all get updates!
~X~
- 1: Milestones! -
Instead of only two milestones at 25,000 and 55,000 words. We'll be expanding the milestones to cover 12 Tiers, starting at Tier 0! To achieve Tier 1 status you'll have to complete a minimum of 5000 words. A new word count bar can be found under your submitted fiction, in your Author Dashboard.
Increase your Word Count! Achieve a new Milestone! Increase your Tier!
~X~
- 2: Challenges! -
Every chapter will now have its own (optional) challenges that you can tackle!
Some challenges, such as the "Full Immersion" are repeatable. Completing challenges gives you experience points. Your Writing Challenge experience points can be found in your Author Dashboard.
Increase your Experience Points! Get Rewards!
~X~
- 3: Rewards! -
Reading the word "Rewards" must have you all salivating! Better wipe your lip and buckle up because-!!!
We ain't fixing what ain't broke.
All cosmetic borders of Challenge Participants will be reset to level one. As you level up your border will change accordingly. A unique logo will be added to the top of the border to differentiate Writing Challenge Participants from regular users.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Each level up and milestone will come with rewards that will be useful to you as an author. An example of this would be "Extend Timer", which would increase how long you have to reach a milestone. Some rewards will only be accessible to BETA Testers.
P.S. - Previous King's Path levels are not lost and your original border will be reinstated after the challenge is over.
~X~
A final word. All of us here on the Dev team worked really hard on these features, so we hope you enjoy them!
- Head Dev, Earl Min
~X~
Quill Crossing Sword [https://cdn4.iconfinder.com/data/icons/video-game-items-concepts/128/sword-pen-quill-3-512.png] BETA TESTERS CLICK HERE Quill Crossing Sword [https://cdn4.iconfinder.com/data/icons/video-game-items-concepts/128/sword-pen-quill-3-512.png]
Well, shit. That was a lot to take in and he didn’t even know where to start. He leaned back in his chair, away from his laptop screen, and took a deep breath. First of all, wow.
All of these features almost made the writing challenge feel like a game, almost. Less FPS though and more like a role playing game, with those challenges being literary based. A LitRPG one could say. Heh.
Stupid puns aside, this was definitely worth clicking some buttons for. The different tiers alone would make it easier to feel like he was progressing.
The previous 25,000 word milestone always felt more like a challenge for the more experienced authors. Churning out all those words in 15 days felt ridiculous to Arthur. That’s half of a full novel, almost a complete book even, in two weeks! For new authors like himself that was just straight madness.
Sure, a decent few stories won the challenge, but how many novels with barely 5 chapters started because of this challenge? Arthur would bet anything that at least half the novels on the site on hiatus started and ended during a Writing Challenge.
Granted, 5000 words to get to the first tier is still a lot, and there wasn’t anything in the update about the original timeline changing, but with tangible rewards like a 6 hour long extension and pausing the challenge for 6 hours - which, if he thought about it, was just the same thing said differently - he could potentially stack them and get a few days extra on that final deadline. Nice.
Having the borders reset kind of sucked though. He was currently at level 18 and the gold trim went really well with his profile avatar: a black cat with golden eyes wearing a burnished gold crown, set on a pea green background. The old, level 1, bronze border was going to clash with his aesthetics.
Oh well. It was honestly a small price for progress. Plus he'd get that new logo. Was King's Path rebranding? This seemed like a good way to suss out how the users felt about the new imagery.
The update didn't really say much about what the beta testers would be doing but he was looking forward to it. Honestly he wasn't even sure why they were needed as the set up looked great already.
Unless it was to see if the different levels of difficulty would add to the experience? Yea that tracked. Difficulty levels and a quick mention about exclusive rewards and challenges were the only thing that pertained to beta testers in the update. You didn't need to be a genius to see that those three things were probably connected.
"Okay, so I guess I need to click this?" he asked himself, clicking on the brightly highlighted link.
A loading screen popped up with the new icon.
Sword Crossing Quill [https://cdn4.iconfinder.com/data/icons/video-game-items-concepts/128/sword-pen-quill-3-512.png]
LOADING.......CHECKING ACCOUNT INFO......STORING RELEVANT DATA.....
ͯLOADING....... ACCOUNT FOUND....USER NAME: GALAXY876....VERIFIED...
LOADING.......USER AGREEMENT FOUND....LOADING ̝̣͔̝͎̎̃̈́̾̈̇̓̑́͞I͕̣͛̏ͨͦ̃̾̍ͨ͐ͤ̚͏͏̷̝̪̫̪͈͍̱̣Ū͉̭̬̩̝̣͔̝͎̀̒̌ͮ͐̎̃̈́̾̈̇̓̑́͞I͕̣͛̏ͨͦ̃....
ͩ̃͛̊̒̄͞҉̖͚̪͙l̤̯̞͖͈̼̯̜ͦ̈ͬ̀̔͆͂̇͝ͅo͇̬͎ͦa̷̙̬͍̪̗̝̤̪̩͔͉̙̪̘͓̟͗̀͌ͥ̉ͤ̏d͕̮̘̣̭̰͓̖̗ͭͮ̽ͧ͗̆͗̊ͮ̏̑ͯ̈̉͠͞͞͞i̓͏̸̴͙̬̝̹͓͍̘͊́̏͒ͣ͛n̨̥͍̬͈ͧ̓́̿ͤͦ̅̽̈̍̕͏̩̠͚ḡ͕̤͕ͪ̉͟.......§שּׂθяÐ_מ_̷̺̺͙͐ͫͫ̃͟k̵̘̺̦͉͖̪̪͖͉͊̆̔́̈́̍̃̈́͒̂̑̀̚͜͝i̶̡̹͈͎̳̞͙͖̾̂̀͑̀͆̑̓̽̉͐͘͘ͅl̶̬̞͎̖͉̹̝͕̝͖̣̉͆l̶̬̞͎̖͉̹̝͕̝͖̣̉͆.EXE.....
BETA SOFTWARE WILL ONLY BE REMOVED ONCE YOU COMPLETE THE CHALLENGE, OR THE CHALLENGE ENDS ᖻᓍᑘ
DO YOU AGREE?
͕Y͕͕E͕͕S͕ ̰͎̰͗ͩ̌̽̿̎̂N̸̸͚̘̖̻̖͙͇͙͉̯̞̦̓́ͥ̉͒̌͌̒͟Ọ̥ͫ̌͟ͅ
He could faintly hear the sound of an old dial up internet dial up system as the page loaded. Somebody next door must have been experimenting with SFX. There were some glitches in the text. 'Loading' was easy enough to see, and so was 'IUI', although reading it made his head hurt a little. The name of the programme though was a bit hard to make out.
Arthur leaned closer trying to read it, his eyes crossing from the effort. The dial up sound increased, sounding like it was coming from a speaker in the room. If someone else was in his bedroom they'd see as blood started dribbling from his nose.
Swo̡̺̘͍͚̻̤ŗ̸̲͙͉͓͚̹̖̘ḑ̱̥̜́.. sword was definitely the first word. His headache was growing but all he needed to see now was the second word. He just needed to word the read second. All he word now, second was to need read second...word.
The left side of Arthur's face started drooping as his head dipped forward, like he was suddenly drowsy. Or suffering from a stroke. Blood from his nose started soaking into his shirt, the small dribble becoming a full leak. He groaned out loud and clenched his teeth. The clicks and screeches of the dial up became deafening in volume like it was coming from inside his head, sounding more insect-like and animalistic than the computer noises from before.
Arthur shook his head to clear it, squinting his eyes as he took advantage of how close the screen suddenly was. Sword and.. kin? No. His vision was blurry and he felt something scratching his skull to get out. He wanted to look away now, but his eyes were glued to the screen. He felt the thing's claws latch unto the seam in his parietal lobe, trying to pull it apart so it could whisper the word out loud.
Arthur heard a man's muffled screaming, but the voice was distant compared to the cacophony in his head. He opened his mouth wanting to bite off his tongue and the scream suddenly got louder. Oh, it was him, he was the one screaming. That was bad. He grabbed his head, squeezing it to keep his brain in. The pressure in his skull increased. He needed to figure out the word.
Quill.
The claws prying his skull apart let go as if repelled. Yeah. Yeah, that was probably it. Sword and Quill.
Arthur suddenly sucked in a deep breath and leant all the way back, head aching. The screeching and clicks sound cut off at the same time, giving him blissful silence. He felt exhausted and he could feel his limbs physically trembling. His body was covered in cold sweat, soaking through his clothes.
Glancing back on the screen made him wince as his head hurt, but he could see that the glitches covered the option buttons too. The option to opt out looked so bummy that he wasn't sure it would work if he clicked it. But could he really going to ignore the fact that he almost died to read two words?
He liked to act the fool sometimes but this was different. He was sure that he was two seconds away from having something pry it's way out of his head. His headache increased just thinking about it. Clearly this beta testing wasn't on the up and up.
He glanced at the no button again and, listening to his black ancestors and the instinct honed from years of scary movies, he clicked it. Nothing.
"Shit."
Arthur glanced down at his chest, feeling almost divorced from his body as it moved up and down, lungs desperately sucking in air all on its own. Crimson red blood had soaked deep into his vintage The Office t-shirt. It looked like a bad Halloween costume now. All that blood loss explained some of the lightheadedness and tingling he was feeling. Did he almost have a stroke? He took control of his breathing and inhaled deep, then let out a huge sigh.
The thought of taking a hot shower really appealed to him right now. Plus he needed to take a fat dump. He'd been holding it in for a while but he felt like his grip on sanity loosened a little too much to hold it any longer.
It was clear to Arthur that the beta software really did need some work. Soul fuckery aside, not being able to opt out was just bad interface designing.
He thought about just getting up and turning off the laptop then became still as a presence loomed behind him, his chair vibrating as something big brushed against it. Bad idea.
Womp.
Guess that's what he got for not reading the terms and conditions. Without looking over his shoulder he swiped the cursor across the screen and clicked yes.
The screen blinked off then came back on. This time with the the sword and quill logo taking up the entire screen. This time with a simple purple loading bar under it. The pressure and sound disappeared, as if they were never there to begin with.
Great. Now that he was done with that he needed to take his ass to the toilet. He was barely keeping his glutes tight enough to prevent disaster.
"Note to self. Don't eat half an entire loaf of bun, half a can of cheese and drink 3 cans of Supligen for breakfast before signing a potentially soul altering agreement next time."