Chapter Nine: Consulting the Manager

  She was right.

  “Thank you,” I said, without hesitating.

  Not that I cared about diapers or donuts, but I’d been deliberately not thinking about what would happen three months from now, when my dog food supply was gone.

  Back in the fourteenth century, the Black Death ravaged Europe. By some estimates, 50% of the population died. Millions of people, gone in less than a decade. Entire villages wiped off the face of the map. So many people dead that it took decades for the population to reach its previous levels.

  But the survivors inherited a world of plenty, at least for a time. Land was abundant, and the middle class was born.

  If, in the next three months, a huge chunk of the population died, I could probably feed the dogs for years from one warehouse trip. The more people died, the easier it would be to find resources. The more people survived, the harder the struggle would become, at least in the short term.

  That awful calculation was the kind of thing I was deliberately not thinking about, but Chelsea had just pointed out that I didn’t have to because of the rift she’d given me.

  She was right, I should be grateful, and I was.

  “Roaches are fine,” I told her earnestly. “Roaches are great. I will love the roaches.”

  “And you will loot the roaches, right?” Chelsea said, still glaring.

  “What?”

  She spread her hands in disgust. “You didn’t even bother to loot the monsters you killed yesterday. How do you expect to earn the credits you’ll need to buy more skills and supplies if you don’t even pick up the loot?”

  I blinked at her. And then, in a small voice, I said, “I forgot.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to me. They were roaches. Bug goo, by the time I was done with them. I wasn’t gonna touch that bug goo. Bad enough that it splattered on my invisible armor.

  “I think I need some gloves,” I said.

  “Well, you could buy some gloves if you had some credits, which you’d have if you bothered to loot the monsters you killed,” Chelsea replied, still sounding disgusted.

  I frowned at her. “Where would I get them? Actually, wait. Credits? Am I supposed to sell the loot somewhere? Isn’t it all protein bars and dog treats?”

  Chelsea’s eye roll was subtle, but not unnoticeable. “Loot within the challenge scenario was representative of the possibilities, not characteristic of all future loot tables. Loot from rifts can include system credits, crafting supplies, gear, and consumables, as well as the occasional rare item. What you receive depends on the rift and the monsters, but it won’t always be dog treats and protein bars. As for selling, every enclave has a System store where you can trade within the integrated multiverse. Subject to taxes, of course.”

  Of course. I wasn’t at all surprised to discover that taxes were multiversal.

  “I don’t have access to an enclave, so how exactly does that benefit me?” I asked, voice dry.

  Chelsea frowned, her eyes going slightly glazed. “Your RMI… ah.” She hopped to her feet. “Come.”

  I followed her over to the bookcases against the wall, where she gestured to the jumble of books, boxes, and glass jars. I looked closer. Like the pastries in the pastry case, their immediate appearance was misleading. The books looked like used paperback novels, the kind that got left behind in coffee shops, but their titles made it clear that they were catalogs.

  I picked up Leather Armor. The cover looked like an old Western, Louis L’Amour style, but when I opened it, each page was a straightforward entry in a catalog, with a picture, a name, a description, stats, and a price.

  Leather Armor

  Quality: Common

  Durability: 50/50

  Weight: Light

  Basic protective gear made from cured animal hide. Offers modest defense against cuts and blunt force, though minimal resistance to piercing or magical damage. Suitable for beginners and easily repaired or replaced.

  Defense +2

  Cost: 25 credits

  I flipped the page and another listing appeared, then another. First it was all the basic pieces, then stat variations, then different leathers, enchantments, magical armor. The prices rose accordingly and the book grew with them. The more I flipped, the bigger the book became until instead of being the length of a Louis L’Amour novel, it was as long as a college textbook—organic chem, not the business basics quickstart guide.

  The last page held an image of a glowing band of white, while the description read:

  Breath of the Etherwyrm Gorget

  Quality: Legendary

  Durability: 1000/1000 (self-repair enchantment included)

  Weight: Light

  Stat Bonus: +10 Presence, +10 Will

  Breath of the Etherwyrm: Grants the wearer 25% resistance to fire, frost, and lightning damage.

  Ability stacks with six-piece set. At 100% resistance, set reflects up to 50% damage.

  Description: Forged from the scale of an elder Etherwyrm and infused with its lingering essence, this gorget radiates power. It is said to whisper with the echoes of ancient wyrms, binding its wearer to a lineage of draconic might.

  Cost: 125,000 credits

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  All right, well, I wouldn’t be getting that anytime soon. Or ever.

  I set the book back on the shelf and looked at the jars. They looked like candy jars from an old-style country store and held what must be consumables. The label on the closest jar read Health Potions, 5 credits, and held little glowing blue vials, like a miniature version of the one I’d found in the scenario.

  I nodded toward it. “If I take one out, does it expand?”

  Chelsea shrugged. “Try it and see?”

  I touched the lid of the jar, but it didn’t come off. Instead, a notification popped up in front of my face.

  Purchase health potion for 5 credits?

  Accessible balance: 0 credits.

  “No shoplifting, I see,” I said, removing my hand from the jar. The notification immediately disappeared. “I suppose that’s a good thing.”

  If it was my Rift Management Interface, would I be on the hook if someone managed to swipe the health potions?

  “Speaking of which, can anyone else use this place?” I asked Chelsea, walking away from the shelves and back to my abandoned coffee. It might be mana, but I wanted the imaginary caffeine.

  Chelsea moved back behind the counter. She sounded thoughtful when she said, “No one can enter it without you, but rift keepers aren’t expected to solo their rifts. They usually work with teams.”

  She gestured at the chalkboard above her head. The only legible entry was still the first one, Thorn’s Edge. “As you advance as a rift keeper, you’ll be able to access other rifts from within your RMI. I think members of your party would have to come through your RMI with you. I’m not sure what the experience would be like for them, though. They might wind up waiting for you in the transition zone. You’ll have to try it to find out.”

  “The transition zone. That’s the nothing space?”

  “If you prefer to call it that.” Chelsea’s tone was amused.

  I looked back up at the chalkboard. The details had changed slightly on my one-and-only rift.

  Tier One Progress: 15%

  Current instances: 0.

  The progress had dropped by 3%. Was that because of all the bugs we’d killed? Did that mean that there were five times as many bugs left in there somewhere?

  Some teacher of mine once claimed the only stupid question is the one not asked. I was pretty sure she was wrong, because I knew I was about to ask a stupid question. I asked it anyway, because I needed to know the answer, and I didn’t feel like playing guessing games with myself.

  “Does the fact that the progress dropped by 3% mean there are a lot more roaches in there to kill?”

  Chelsea glanced at the blackboard herself. “Unknown, at least to me. If you’d finished exploring the rift and harvested all the monsters, you’d get a reward at the end from the rift core. That’s an instance harvest. You could then check the progress percentage to see how many instance harvests it would take to achieve a full harvest, which is when the progress reaches zero.”

  “So I might have to kill those roaches five more times?” I was totally investing in bug spray. I could probably find it at the Dollar General, in fact.

  “I’d guess there are other monsters in the rift, too, but it’s just a guess. The baseline information on Earth rifts is quite limited at the moment. You’ll also want to watch the percentage to see how quickly the rift regenerates. If you’re aiming for a full harvest, you need to consider regeneration time when planning. If each instance harvest is worth ten percent, but the regeneration is five percent a day, you’ll need more instance harvests than it looks at first glance.”

  “Got it.” I gazed at the description. Okay, I was gonna have to kill a lot of bugs. And quickly, too.

  “Assuming, that is, that you don’t destroy the rift core and close the breaches, which I would strongly advise against doing,” Chelsea continued.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to give me advice.” I said, taking a sip of my latte. It was perfect, just the way I liked it, which was both creepy—was System Chelsea reading my mind to find out how I liked my coffee?—and somehow gratifying. I didn’t share Emma’s coffee obsession, but I was going to treasure my post-apocalyptic lattes.

  Chelsea chuckled. “That one is barely advice. You’ve got a great little rift there. It’s no enclave, but if you take good care of it, it’ll serve you well.”

  “How am I supposed to level up, though?” I asked her. “The roaches in there were worth almost no XP to me. Bear and Riley got some, but that’s because their levels were so low to begin with. I don’t want to wait months for the rift to get tougher.”

  I was also completely unwilling to let those bugs overflow into my backyard, even if it would make the rift more rewarding. No invasion of the giant cockroaches was happening on my watch.

  “As a rift keeper, there are a number of ways in which you can gain access to rifts, but the easiest is usually as a full harvest reward. Once you stabilize this wild rift, you’ll get to choose another to explore. You’ll get experience points for exploring, complete harvests, submitting rift rating data. It doesn’t all have to be killing tough monsters.”

  “But the best XP comes from killing monsters higher-level than me, right?”

  “Mostly, yes. Or quests. In fact…” Chelsea began tapping at the cash register, as if she were ringing up my coffee. She shoved the credit card reader in my direction.

  Instead of a charge, though, the card reader’s screen read:

  Quest Available

  Title: First Harvest

  Objective: Complete one full instance harvest of the Thorn’s Edge rift.

  Reward: 500 XP, 50 credits.

  Failure: Progress toward total harvest delayed.

  The Sign Here line was exactly like it would be on a credit card charge.

  I blinked at it. “A quest?”

  “Sign to accept,” Chelsea said cheerily. “I’ve got some others I can give you, too, but I can only ring them up one at a time.”

  I looked up at her. “Can I negotiate?”

  Her eyes widened and she laughed, a little disbelieving.

  I put my finger on the Reward line. “Not to be picky, but it takes me thousands of XP to level up now. I’m sitting on a couple levels in case I need them for healing, but I can tell you that it’s taking over three thousand XP to go from 10 to 11, and I know it’s only going to get worse from there. This quest is probably gonna be 10% of a level at most, which, you know… isn’t gonna help me save the world, if that’s the goal.”

  Absolutely deadpan, Chelsea said, “Let me consult my manager.”

  I tilted my head, pursing my lips. I recognized a bullshit response when I heard one. Except Chelsea actually pulled a cell phone from her apron pocket, turned her back, and walked a few steps away.

  “Yeah, boss, got a question for you,” I heard her say before her voice dropped lower.

  That was unexpected. Who the heck was she talking to? If she was a personalized interface construct—a bot, basically—who was her manager? A super-bot? A person? The System itself?

  She turned around to face me again and her eyes met mine. She looked like she was listening to someone else talk, but she also looked amused.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, just like a person listening to someone talk. Or like a person pretending to listen to someone talk. I took another sip of my latte, but kept my eyes fixed on her face, trying to figure out whether she really was communicating with someone.

  “Okay,” she said. “Will do. Yep. Got it.”

  The non-existent pauses between her words were highly suspicous, in my opinion.

  She slipped her phone back into her pocket. “Good news, bad news, which do you want first?”

  “I’ll take the bad news,” I said skeptically.

  “It’s 500 XP, because the toughest known monster in there is Level 5. An appropriately leveled party would be getting a full level’s worth of XP out of it. It should be trivial for you, so no, you can’t have more XP for the quest.”

  I wasn’t surprised. It had been worth a try, but arguing with a system—any system—had never really paid off for me.

  “What’s the good news?” I asked.

  “I’m not allowed to tell you.” Chelsea smirked at me.

  I hate people who smirk. It’s the most annoying expression there is, although leering is a close competitor.

  “I will tell you, though, you should take the quest.” She tapped the credit card reader. “Kill the bugs, Olivia. Kill all the bugs, and then kill them some more.”