We’d been walking up and down the city streets for hours killing rats when a system message appeared.
System Decision! It was determined that the Ring of the Dark Technocrat’s Heart will no longer be made available at low levels given that Snoop is a level 25 skill. This ability gives its user an undue informational advantage and skews experience gain. It is also statistically unlikely that you’re anything other than dead four days from now, so enjoy your toy. Oh, and you incurred an 80% tax on your party’s credit holdings for taking up computer processing time to decide how to respond to your cheaty playing style.
TRIX: An 80% tax? No. That’s can’t be right. Right?
WILL: Yeah, it looks like I just lost 80% of my credits.
TRIX: I did too. This game. Why couldn’t I have woken up inside Sim City?
WILL: Losing credits isn’t a big deal to me. I’ve never had money.
Trix sighed, exasperated.
TRIX: You’re in here because you’ve never had money. And now you’re probably going to die because you’ve just lost it all again. And worse—I’m going to die because of your mistake.
WILL: Uh—what? I was thinking we got off easy. I had about 400 credits before the tax. That’s it.
Trix was pacing now and using a finger to spin her friendship bracelets around her wrist.
TRIX: The tax was to both our credits, and I had almost 20,000.
WILL: How did you have that much?
Trix didn’t answer the question even though I knew she’d heard me. Had she killed previous group members for their credits? I shook off the thought. No matter what she’d done in the past, I needed Trix now.
TRIX: Follow me, I’m going to show you something.
We walked for ten minutes before Trix pointed out a green and blue neon sign jutting over the sidewalk for Bar Bituate & General Store. I followed Trix into a dark, densely packed room full of player characters and NPCs. It smelled of strong drink and sweat, and the roar of voices competed with badly produced punk music. In a far corner, someone was slumped over on the sticky floor, whether asleep or dead, I couldn’t tell. We walked past the bar room to a big room full of goods and a counter at the front, the bearded proprietor waiting patiently behind.
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TRIX: There.
Trix pointed to a screen above the main counter with an image of a dark brown leather breastplate lined with light brown fur and silver studs.
The Phantom Pirate’s Armor – 25,000 credits.
+5 Dexterity (+1 for every 5 levels of wearer)
20% chance to trigger lesser teleportation when hit. Lesser teleportation moves the user within 10 feet of their starting position in any direction.
The 5,000 credit armor was junk in comparison. It provided a single stat boost. That’s it. No scaling up with character growth. Certainly no teleporting. Still, teleporting ten feet wasn’t going to save anyone from the Big Crunch.
TRIX: That was our ticket out of the Big Crunch.
WILL: That? How?
TRIX: You remember the barrier?
WILL: Yeah—oh. You were going to stand against it and then teleport into the next quadrant when you were hit. If it triggered. But it’s a dangerous play. Whoever they’re sending in to clear out this quadrant isn’t going to need a lot of hits.
TRIX: Well, no kidding, Will. I wasn’t going to wait like the village idiot for the thug army to show up. There’s plenty of rats around.
WILL: That’s clever, really clever. But how would it save both of us?
TRIX: Teleport takes anyone holding onto you along for the ride, but I should have known the game wouldn’t let me get it.
Maybe Trix forgot that I could see her health and psy meters. Or maybe she trusted that she could make whatever doubts I had about her go away. I watched as her psy points dropped and felt charmed by her all at once. I knew what she was doing to me, but even so, my clarity about Trix was fading fast, turning into rosy memories of her talking her way out of Mukari’s office, as I wrote myself a note in my interface for later.
Check limitations on teleport.
Before I could say anything, someone called out from behind us. “Hey! I know you! Jeez! It’s really you!”
I turned to see a guy named Ron – Level 4. He had shaggy black hair, sweatpants, and smelled like yesterday’s tuna. I was sure I’d never seen him, surer still that he didn’t know me.
“You went straight prison yard on the Rat Lord. Can you teach me to fight like that?” Ron swung a pretend sword and called out, “Hi-ya!”
TRIX: I know we need allies, but this guy? He stinks.
WILL: We’re not in a position to turn people away.
TRIX: I don’t know. With this guy in tow, we’ll hurt our chances of drawing stronger allies. We need Javier. We need Eleyre. We need, anyone but him.
WILL: But we’ve got, what, four days? And we haven’t run into those good players. What we do have is this guy.
Trix looked at Ron and shrugged her shoulders. “Alright, Ron, you’re in. But for the next two levels, you’re raising charisma.”
It felt good to have another team member, even if he did smell like tuna fish. I clapped Ron on the back and we high-fived.
