Metropolis - Goldilocks

Monday, May 11th, 2089 | 3:37pm

[Status: In-Game]

Aya joined the party of three warriors and a mage and agreed on a Contract where she didn’t get any EXP until she needed to level up. At that point, if it came up during their hunt, she would get just enough EXP to level fifteen before not getting any once more. It was perfect for her. Even though the party was a lot less experienced, even if their levels were slightly higher and she focused more on the stats than before, the hunt went much faster the second time around. She was able to draw on her experience from the previous hunt to make up for the mage’s abysmal performance.

Seeing firsthand how weak mages were at the lower levels, she was extremely glad she hadn’t chosen that particular path. The mere thought of how long it would have taken her to level up made a shiver crawl up her spine. With each level, gaining stats became that much harder. Throughout the hunt, she’d trained strength, agility, litheness and aim as she had the previous hunt. The difference this time was how she went around collecting Slither venom whenever she could.

The Slithers on the first couple of floors didn’t even have poison in them, a fact that had gone unnoticed from her in the first round. Over the next couple of floors, she started developing a method to get to the snakes’ venom. She could cut the fangs and dribble out the venom, but trial and error showed her that she couldn’t wait too long after the lamia died; the venom coagulated very quickly and became almost impossible to extract. Once, she accidentally cut herself on the snake fang and watched it continue to drip venom even after she’d extracted her hand. The method had the added benefit of seriously improving her poison resistance stats.

From then on, she simply started the venom flow with a quick cut to her hand and stored the rest of it in one of her multi-purpose water bags. Instead of helping to finish off the Slithers as she had for the other team, she would sometimes sit back and work on her poison extraction or snake skinning. Combined with the other haul, she’d collected quite an impressive quantity of snake skins.

Eventually, she also found a rhythm of hunting with the new team. Aya realized it was going to be different with every set of people she worked with, but at one point she got so fed up with the mage’s uselessness that she took him by the arm, shoved her backup goblin blade in his hand and taught him how to strike without getting his squishy self hurt.

“Strike and retreat,” she kept repeating.

It worked like a charm when the brat didn’t try to be a hero by thumping his chest and trying to stay to fight. He needed to learn his place, he was a mage and mages didn’t have good resistance or defense. Over time, she figured out that the group was made up of a bunch of work-friends, accountants no less. Then she watched as the mage fail incredibly even after her whole lecture. Putting his real identity into perspective explained a lot.

“Look,” she said, fed up, pulling him aside for what she decided would be the last time. “See this?”

Aya sent him a link to the forum.

“This is some mage basics. You chose this class, now deal with it. You’re gonna be a backup player forever and you won’t be particularly useful until you reach level 25… at least. So until then… rely on the good graces of your friends and stay back. Your fake heroics are a nuisance.”

The guy’s slightly feminine tightened recoiled in anger but before he could retaliate, one of his female office co-workers, a warrior named Esteell said, “She’s right, Marvin. Just shut up and stay back.”

The mage’s game name was MageSlayer, but Marvin fit him so much better that she had a hard time not laughing.

Alright, who was she kidding? Twenty seconds went by before she bent over and cracked up until tears flowed out of her eyes. She tried to stop, but couldn’t. By the time she managed to pull herself together, her abs were hurting and her cheeks were wet. When she looked up, Marvin was glaring at her, but after that, he stayed back and they actually got through to the boss.

When they reached the boss room, they had to wait twenty minutes until he re-spawned. Aya didn’t know that boss’ had a cool-down period of twelve Era hours or she might have chosen a different dungeon to crawl. She thought about all of the collected venom, her increased poison resistance, the Contracts she’d sold to the team while waiting and all the basic fighting experience she’d accumulated over the last eight hours and realized she was wrong. She was glad she had gotten the second round of that dungeon done with. She could feel her skills improving and she didn’t want to have to come back to the dungeon just to collect some Slither venom.

Now that she had enough to hopefully last her blades a while, she intended on doing as many other dungeons as she could. It would be the best way to increase her stats quickly, by teaming up with different people and encountering different situations that tested her in new ways. The stats were rewarded that much more quickly every time you did something original.

The rest of Aya’s day followed much in the same way. MageSlayer ended up leaving a horrible review but it was ‘disliked’ by all three of his warrior friends, one of whom commented, “Stop being such a pussy, dude. You had your ass handed to you by a little girl. Deal with it. As for the review: she drives a fair bargain and is a no bullshit kind of person. Very experienced, even tried to help our team’s weak link. Totally recommended, don’t let the XXX discourage you, none of that got in the way for us.”

‘XXX’ stood for convict status and Aya almost choked up when she saw the words, even if she snorted over the words ‘very experienced’.

By the time she got back to Ferguson’s farm, it was already too late to sign a new training Contract even though she already had three more requests. Instead, she politely declined, outlined her schedule for the next day and went about some menial chores. She worked on Contracting the eggs. As expected, about half of them gave absolutely no bonuses.

Aya took out her notebook and made a sketch of the bird coop she wanted. It needed to have private pens so she could lock the birds in until she figured out which ones were laying which eggs. She would need to get rid of all the zero bonus ones and focus on the useful ones. It was going to cut her stock in half, but at least she wouldn’t be carrying dead weight around.

She sketched a couple variations and showed them to Ackman. He gave his professional input and a couple more changes were made before she handed over the final sketch. As soon as he finished the shop, he would start working on the coop. Aya decided to eliminate one of the costs of construction by supplying the wood herself, so she headed over to the woods and spent the last five or so game hours simply chopping wood. The kid must have logged out at some point because when she got there, she was completely alone.

Aya didn’t mind; it gave her senseless physical exercise that helped her process some of the thoughts that were storming around in her head. By the time the log-out notification came around, she had to force herself not to immediately accept it. Every minute of game time counted, but she was completely exhausted.

Chris stepped out of the capsule at precisely six o’clock feeling surprisingly sore. It didn’t make any sense since her real body had been immobile the whole day, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of pure physical fatigue. In her tired daze, she didn’t register the path to the cafeteria, her gruel or even the walk back to her room. By the time her mind caught up with her body, she was on her bed, watching Tiny do the warm-ups for the exercises.

“You back on Earth yet, Barbie?” the woman asked, eyes twinkling with humor.

“…Yeah,” Chris said. She didn’t know how to behave around her roommate. It was the first time she’d seen her since that morning when she’d found out the woman had been lying to her all along. She curbed the need to scream, shout and throw accusations by the woman by forcing her limbs across the room to the cupboard.

Taking out her mat, she settled down next to Tiny. She purposefully took the exact same spot as always and concentrated on acting ‘normal’. They went through the exercises in their usual silence and by the end of the forty minute workout, Chris was sweaty, panting and finding it hard to hate the woman.

They took their toiletries and headed to the showers together as always and as usual, the tall woman turned to her and asked in all casually, “How was your day in Era?”

Until then, Chris had always seen it as a friendly question, but now she couldn’t help feeling like the woman was spying on her. The question that had been swimming around in her head all day surfaced again: who was she working for?

At this point, Chris felt like there were so many players involved that she didn’t even know where to start with her suspicions. There was Suerte, whoever he was representing, whoever they wanted to get to in the prison… who she felt was someone entirely different than the Warden, yet he was the man she needed to satisfy by the end of the week… Not to mention all of the different prison politics she needed to deal with.

“That bad, huh?” Tiny asked.

Chris looked up from her tangle of thoughts and felt a sudden hot anger for the woman beside her. For the last couple of days, Tiny had been the only person Chris had considered her friend. Words that she would have taken as comforting even that morning she now took as mockery. She clenched her fists and forced a lid on her temper.

“Ahuh,” she said, exhaling slowly. “Not that great… you?”

She’d never taken an interest in Tiny’s position in Era before. As an ally, it seemed unnecessary to question her about her gameplay. If Tiny was on her side, she would be volunteering any information she thought could be useful to Chris, and going by all that Tiny had told her, that was exactly what Chris had assumed.

Perhaps the time had finally arrived for her to become more curious. She’d already told herself this many times, but this time she really swore to herself never to trust anyone again. Everyone had their personal agenda and it never included philanthropy, at least, not as long as the subject was human.

“Pretty good,” Tiny answered. If she was surprised by Aya’s question she didn’t show it. “Thinking about switching guilds. Some of the top players in mine just left…”

As Tiny went into more detail about the benign subject of her guild, Chris’ thoughts migrated towards her rank. She nearly tripped over her steps when it dawned on her that she still hadn’t checked it. Chris considered waiting to check it in private, so prying eyes wouldn’t see her too-expressive face, but curiosity won out.

[5599/5792: Pending Review]

She bit her lip, 63 ranks. The only frame of reference she had was Yaz. At level 15, she’d been at 5469. Chris had no idea what the girl was up to in game or what kind of play-style she had, but if the levels were anything to go by, the ranks were almost entirely determined by level. The only exception to the rule was her massive rank jump the day before. Getting to level 10 would not have proportionately propelled her that far. It led her to believe that in her case, the ‘Pending Review’ was at least being affected by some arithmetic that wasn’t completely automated. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that her fate was going to be completely up to the final review of her rank, whenever that would be. At least, she hoped her rank would be reviewed, because the alternative was bleak.

Chris was at level 14. Each level was exponentially harder for to get to. The EXP point increase with each level was ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the rising difficulty of attaining stat points. She’d spent the entire afternoon at level 14 and the way things were going, she would spend most of the next day on it as well. The thought of getting to level 15 triggered the memory of her conversation with Sid. The woman had told her that another player made it to level 15 in one day, but Chris was only really appreciating that fact now, four days later.

Sid had also told her that she needed to get to level seven by the end of the first day. She had been the only person with such a scientific approach to the levels and ranks. It was surprising, considering the woman couldn’t play herself. Goldilocks was massive and Chris hadn’t come across her again, but she was coming to the slow realization that she just might have to find her. If the woman had been able to tell her what level she needed on the first day to stay in the game, she might be able to give her a goal to stay in it at the end of the week. At the very least, Sid might be able to tell her something about the ranking process.

*Beep*

The door announced quietly as it opened to reveal total and utter mayhem.

“—Igging bitch!” a tall white woman shouted as she punched a smaller black, naked woman. “This is what you get for stealing my place!”

Two other women were holding the small one as the taller one continued to rain blows down on her. Each blow was accompanied by a muted thud, but if the small naked one was crying out in pain, it couldn’t be heard over the jeers going around in the stalls. It seemed like each cubicle had someone inside, yet no one was stepping up to help.

Instinctively, Chris started to take a step only to have Tiny raise her arm to block her path. Chris looked up to see the woman shake her head slowly before motioning for them to back away.

“Bu—” Chris began, only to have Tiny grip her arm tightly and start pulling her back.

She was getting ready to struggle against the woman’s grip, but when they turned around, they saw more women approaching. Tiny’s grip tightened and she swiveled her back in the direction of the shower. Confused, Chris just followed limply as the woman lifted her arm and then Chris’ arm to the reader before entering the showers.

Tiny quickly pushed Chris into a stall and closed the plastic door.

“Wh—” Chris began again, only to be cut off again.

“Shh,” Tiny whispered. “Quiet.”

Hearing the increasingly agitated crowd around them, Chris stayed quiet as the beatings continued to rain down on the woman outside. Sympathy for the woman was slowly replaced by fear as she worked out what was going on from the cries and insults she heard.

“Fishies get what’s coming to them!”

“Know your place!”

“Any more fish need reminding?”

“Tiny’s got one with her!”

“Come on Tiny! Let her out! Or is she—”

“Yea!” Tiny shouted, pushing Chris further into the stall. “She’s busy!”

Chris would have blushed if her face hadn’t already been drained of all its blood. Jeers and shouts echoed across the stalls. There seemed to be more and more people entering the showers, way more people than there were shower stalls.

“Get her!” Someone shouted across the room.

Tiny leaned over Chris and turned on the shower, and stripped down. She was naked by the time women started banging on the plastic door. Tiny winked at Chris, looked her up and down suggestively before turning around to address the women.

“Unless you want to come in here and get wet with me, buzz,” she said in a slow, firm and loud voice.

“You wo—” one of the women began, but was cut off when shouts rang out on the other side of the room.

“Stiffs incoming!”

All it took was that one shout and suddenly everyone was repeating it.

“Stiffs!”

“Stiffs!”

“Quick!” Tiny urged. “Shower!”

“Wh—”

“Just shut up and get naked, Barbie,” she said harshly while she soaped herself down in record time.

Seeing the woman’s rushed movements, she was quick to do the same. Women were running all about them and dozens of showers sprang to life.

“After that fiasco, they’re gonna shut this shower block down for the night,” she said rinsing off all the soap. “If you wanna sleep clean, you better move.”

Chris took the fastest shower of her life, nearly scalding her skin under the temperature Tiny chose. She barely noticed it as they jumped into the half-wet clothes they’d dropped at the entrance as they made their way out of the showers. She kept pace with Tiny and half ran, half jogged her way back to their room.

The door beeped closed behind her and she was feeling all sweaty again. She was breathing hard, both from panic and exertion from the run. Her hair was dripping a mixture of water, sweat and unrinsed shampoo.

“Relax Barbie,” Tiny said calmly as she put her things away. “They can’t get in without these, remember?” The woman held up her b-link.

Chris nodded mutely and put away her own things, only then noticing the absence of her soap. She cursed under her breath, adding the small task of procuring a new bar of soap to her already enormous list of things to do. Sighing, she slumped down into her bed, not caring that her hair was getting it all wet. She might be safe now, but the women were going to kill her in the morning.

As if sensing her thoughts, Tiny poked her head over her cot and said, “Stop fretting Barbie. You’re safe. They ain’t gonna hurt ‘ya.”

“But they were targeting—”

“New meat,” Tiny finished, confirming her thoughts. “Yep. Every time there are new people, some old players get ranked down to duds. They don’t like that much…”

“So how can I not be worried?”

“You don’t go around spouting your rank,” she said. “That’s why. Stay under the radar until the week is over. You’ll need to decide who you’re gonna join soon, but you got until then at least.”

“Join?” Chris asked.

“Come on Barbie,” Tiny looked at her flatly. “You know better than that. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine. This always happens… it usually just takes a bit longer is all. Now that the first one’s broken out, the guards will be more vigilant. They’ll be more vigilant, pulling double shifts, you’ll see.”

Tiny retreated when Chris didn’t say anything for a moment. She considered her words carefully before she asked a minute later, “Hey Tiny, who are you with?”

The large woman poked her head over the edge of the bed, “You asking me if I’m taken, darlin’?” her lips twitched in amusement before she added, “Already told ya, you’re not my type.”

Tiny winked and once again retreated. The silence around them lengthened and eventually just became the silence of the room as both women worked on their own things. Chris was back to researching the forums, she would need to figure out exactly what class she wanted soon. Time ticked by slowly until the lights eventually went out. Usually, Chris stayed awake a lot later, but the days of stress had finally caught up with her and she felt her eyelids drooping. She didn’t fight them, but the last thing she heard was Tiny’s voice.

“You don’t get to pick Barbie, you’re chosen. Just play your heart out and…”

The rest was lost to slumber.