Bob followed the navigation prompts to reach the request board. Arriving at his destination, he checked out the small structure in front of him. The board itself was a crystalline pane framed in brushed steel, held up by black metal poles that bracketed it and supported a small roof. A couple of other players were looking it over, their identities made obvious by their ham-handed attempts at their idea of physical perfection.

Turning his attention from the grotesquely over-compensating duo, Bob turned his attention to the request board. While he had not paid much attention to it before, he noted that even the entries on the board were seamlessly translated into High Draconic script, which was basically a stylized imitation of scratch marks made by dragon claws. In fact, the quest NPCs and the store NPC had all spoken to him in High Draconic. Whoever it was that had designed the translation enchantment had done a flawless job.

The request board was an interesting artifact. On the clear surface, it displayed numerous color coded boxes, each with a brief description of the type of request. They were coded according to the type of zone they would be in. There were a handful of green posts, many yellow, a smattering of orange and red, as well as a single purple. Since the Green Zone was by and large considered to be safe, Bob focused on the yellow requests, and picked out three to his liking.

One was an open ended kill quest, offering a bounty for each mutant killed, with a minimum of five required for a turn in.

The second one was a retrieval quest, to fetch something called a data chip from someone who had disappeared in a yellow zone tunnel network.

The last one was another kill quest, this one focused on wiping out a rogue light drone mother that had corrupted firmware.

The primary reason he had chosen these three requests is that the last two indicated a similar area, and the open ended kill quest could be achieved anywhere in the yellow zone.

As he accepted the requests, and confirmed their presence in his quest log, one of the other two players waved their hand in front of his face to get his attention.

“Whoa, real focused little bugger, aren’t ya? You’re a player too, right? I saw you were taking requests from the board, and, uh, wanna team up?” The giant man who had spoken looked a bit sheepish.

“Team up? What for?” As he said this, Bob remembered how much humans loved to cluster together and hid a wince. “I mean, what do you want to team up to do?”

This time, the other player spoke. She was tall and slim with an improbably large chest. “Well, we were trying to do a request to kill at least five rogue drones in the tunnels. We got swarmed by a few dozen of these green dog-sized rat things with like six legs. I picked Marksman as my class and he picked Cyber Rogue. Neither of our classes is any good at dealing with large groups. We, uh, didn’t make it.”

“Died like a couple newbie adventurers walking naked into Deep Thousand,” the guy chuckled. “We were thinking of abandoning the request, but saw you walk up. We thought with someone else on hand we might stand a better chance. What class did you pick by the way? That’s a heavy looking backpack. How are you even carrying it? You’re so small.”

“Combat Engineer. Didn’t you read the details in character creation? Your avatar’s appearance has no effect on your stats. So, I might be puny, but I’m probably exactly as strong as you are.”

“Huh. I didn’t read that part at all.”

“Me either,” said the woman.

“So, what does a Combat Engineer actually do? We kind of skipped over the complicated sounding classes.”

“We’re kind of defensive specialists, I think? I can put out portable shields and automated turrets right now. Here, use your identify on these so you get the idea.” Bob pulled out a turret from his inventory and a portable shield.

The other two players inspected the items he proffered.

Basic Portable Shield

The Basic Portable Shield allows the user to deploy a temporary fortification made of poly-ceramic plates sandwiched between thin layers of electrically reinforced non-Newtonian fluids. When deployed, the shield will fold out to be six feet wide by four feet tall, and will consume 400 Watts from the user’s power supply capacity.

Basic Turret

The Basic Turret allows the user to deploy an automated stationary weapons control unit, which comes stock with slug and buck shot round capabilities and the desired mode will be ready to go upon deployment. Switching between firing modes will take 20 seconds. The Basic Turret will automatically fire on all targets in the vicinity, starting from closest and working towards the farthest. The Basic Turret has a cyclic rate of fire of 45 rounds per minute. Requires one channel from a Tier 1 or better Link with IFF upgrade to operate, and consumes 1000 Watts from the user’s power supply capacity.

“Uh, so, you can put out walls and… Dancing Guns?” The woman asked, referring to the enchantment that allowed a weapon to act separately from its wielder.

“More or less.” Bob stowed the items back in his inventory. Handy thing, much better than the spatial storage items in real life. “I have two of each. With my gear, I can put out two Shields and a Turret. So, uh, since I guess we’re gonna work together… You can call me Bob.”

“Oh, right. You can call me ShadowRunner. This is my sister, you can call her FarShot.”

“Alright, ShadowRunner, FarShot, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

FarShot giggled. “Nobody says things that formal anymore.”

Bob shrugged, “There’s nothing wrong with following the old ways once in a while.”

As he spoke, he received a new notification noise which sounded like three distinct clicking noises.

<

He opened his Comm screen, and saw a new message from an unknown sender.

To:

From:

Subject: Tunnel Work

Heya pal! My cousin Kiera messaged me and said you could help me out by guarding me while I head into some Yellow Tunnels to perform some repair work. If you’re interested, I can pay you 100 credits. It’s half what I pay for a Corporate Contract, but it’s twice what you’d get from those money grubbing fuck-nuts. If you’re still interested, I’m free tomorrow morning, around 10 till 2 in the afternoon. We’ll need at least two hours, so I’d need you to show up by noon, though the earlier the better. Kiera said you seem decent, so I hope you can come through.

May the Market Bless You,

Vince

“Just a moment, guys, I need to send a message.”

To:

From:

Subject: Re: Tunnel Work

I can assist you in this endeavor, and accept your proposed terms. Please send me Nav coordinates for where to meet. Once we rendezvous tomorrow, I shall defend you on your foray into the Yellow Tunnels.

Sincere Regards,

Bob

Having sent off the message, Bob smiled. He had the requests for today, and another one lined up for tomorrow morning. It was a good day for earning credits. Even if they weren't real gold.

“Right, sorry about that. So, do you guys have any other requests lined up?”

The two siblings looked at each other. “We were planning to just do them one at a time.”

Bob projected his best fake adventurer teacher persona as he recited wisdom he’d overheard numerous times while scrying on adventurers. “Haha, that’s a rookie mistake! Always stack your requests! Grab the open ended kill bounty for mutants as well, and see if you can get the one for the data chip retrieval and the rogue drone mother. I’ll grab the one you two have already picked up.” The siblings complied as Bob picked up the extra request that he hadn’t noticed before.

“Okay! Now, let’s follow our navigation markers to the tunnels!” Bob turned to stride away, but stopped when ShadowRunner spoke up.

“Uh, hold on a second, let me add you to our group.”

“Group?” Bob asked.

“Ah, yea, me and FarShot figured this bit out. Let me send you an invite real quick. Anyways, with this, we all share experience and kill credit. It’s supposed to also help us regulate looting, but we didn’t get that far…”

<

“Yes, join group.”

The giant man grinned. “We’re gonna kick so much ass!”

A half hour later, they’d wound through various streets and finally come across an entrance to the Yellow Tunnels that was near their objectives. The entrance was basically a large room, with a heavy steel door on either end. One door could not be opened unless the other was closed and latched. A pair of turrets sat in opposite corners of the ceiling. Once they exited the room, they found themselves in a chilly and damp space. Light was provided by dual luminous strips that ran along the ceiling’s edges.

FarShot and ShadowRunner seemed spooked as they traveled onward, descending into the tunnel complex beneath the city.

“You seem really composed, Bob. Are you an adventurer in real life?”

“I… I spend most of my time in Deep Thousand. I guess you could say I picked this up to get away from all that for a while. Take a break, you know?”

The siblings’ faces took on a look of awe. FarShot spoke this time, “We’ve always wanted to be adventurers. Grew up hearing all the stories of their heroic deeds and the tales from the Age of Heroes. But our parents would never allow it.” She seemed somewhat dejected as she said it.

ShadowRunner’s voice took on a mocking tone. “The family legacy is too important. Myeh Myeh Myeh.”

FarShot spoke bitterly, “At least you probably won’t be married off to some middle aged fuck-head to be their second or third wife and secure some shitty deal.”

ShadowRunner’s voice softened. “I know, sis. I just can’t do anything to stop that sort of thing as long as Dad’s around. No matter how much we both wish he’d fucking croak already, like the fucking toad he is.”

FarShot sighed.

After several moments of piecing together context clues, Bob felt inordinately proud as he figured out what they were alluding to. “So, why not just kill him?”

The two looked at him, but said nothing. So he just shrugged. “Life is too long to always cater to the wishes of others. Eventually, you have to do things for yourself.”

They continued to look at him funny. Then they turned to look at each other. Bob paid no attention, as he was focused on their surroundings.