After being escorted up the stairs, I stroll into her office feeling great. My plan is starting to come together. Yeah, it’s costing me more than I thought it would, but if it works out, I’ll be filthy fucking rich. I should be able to swim in the all the coin I get, just like that duck cartoon… what was the name of that? Ah fuck it, It doesn’t matter. I see Mrs. Brown sitting up behind her desk, smoking a cigarette from that ludicrously long holder. She’s wearing a dark green, sheer dress that shows off a black corset. I have no idea what she’s wearing underneath the desk, but I can’t help but wonder… and hoping she stands up.

My heart melts as I see her face light up as I enter. It’s a special feeling when a woman this fucking gorgeous is happy to see you.

“Utah, my darling, how are you doing? I can honestly say it’s wonderful to see… what the fuck happened to your face?”

And with that, I wanna go crawl under a rock until my nose grows back, “We were attacked the night before last. I was injured again and my poor nose seems to have given up on me. Not that I can blame it.”

Her face pales a little, and a look of panic replaces her look of horror, “I-I-I I didn’t… Does your captain think it might be me?”

Damn, people really are scared of Zijde. I can’t help but chuckle, “No, we know it wasn’t you. We aren’t sure who it was though. I do have a sack of coin for you. The chest had 500 pesos too many.”

I walk over and put the sack on the table. She stares at me for a moment, indecision apparent, “So, I had a job for you. I’m not sure if that’ll be an option now.”

“What was the job?”

“In about a month there is a party being hosted by a rich plantation owner. He has several plantations near Santiago de Cuba, and he likes to think he is more powerful than he actually is. He used to be one of my biggest buyers, but he’s gotten it in his head he’s gonna start up his own fence for ill-gotten goods. I just can’t have someone with his capital as competition. I was going to have you infiltrate his party and kill him,but... I’m sorry honey, I don’t think you could get in as you are currently.”

“So, if my face was less… whatever you wanna call it, I could? What’s the pay?”

“Of course darling, but I don’t see how that would happen. I was going to let you keep the 500 pesos.”

“Make it a thousand, and I have a way to heal my face. I’ll be good as new in a day.”

She snorts a little she laughs so hard, “Darling, you need to work on your bartering. Doubling a price like that makes you seem pretentious.”

I give her my best smile with what little I have, “I’m not bartering. I’m just stating the price for my services. I know what I’m worth. Do you?”

Her cheeks flush, but I have no idea what I said that would make her mad, “Oh, I’d have to see more of you to tell what you’d be worth. Although, if you come back with a healed face tomorrow I will gladly pay you the 1000 pesos.”

“Good, I’ll be back around this time tomorrow.”

“I look forward to seeing you at your best tomorrow. Don’t disappoint me.”

God I’m so glad to be out of there. That woman is so damn gorgeous, but the hunger in her eyes is so off putting. I don’t even know what she’s hungry for. I think it’s power, but she wants any and all power. Power over me, power over Zijde, power over Nassau… hell she might be aspiring to rule the world some day. I really don’t know how to take it, but I do know it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Any-who, I’m just gonna lay down in the room I rented for for the next 24 hours. I paid the guy double to make sure no one bothers me to be on the safe side. I’ve been trying to eat this brick of nutrition for the last 20 minutes, but it’s starting to really kick my ass. It doesn’t taste nasty, but it is definitely bland. It’s kinda sweet and savory, but it tastes like wet cardboard mostly.

After eating about 75% of it, I decide that it’ll have to be enough. Go to rewrap the brick in the plastic, but I can’t find it. I know I put it on the this little table beside the bed. Wait, what happened to the syringe I used yesterday? It was plastic… I take out the small plastic tonic bottle and down it. It thankfully had no taste whatsoever. I place it down on the night stand and watch it. After about 30 seconds I blink and it’s gone…

Welp, I’m just gonna do my best to ignore that trippy bullshit and logou… damn my nose itches. Shit, it’s getting so much worse. I fight the urge to scratch, but after a few seconds the itching is so overpowering it feels like my nose is burning. I go through the logout procedure as fast as I can, but right before I lose consciousness, I feel the bones rapidly growing underneath my tender flesh.

I see the same bland white ceiling as I come out of the game. I should get a picture or something to put up there so it’s a little more pleasant to logout. I unplug the spinal implant so I can take a shower and catch up on some basic hygiene stuff I’ve been neglecting. I'm so glad I didn’t wait any longer to log out though. That itching will haunt me. It felt like there were bugs underneath my skin, and I can firmly say, that shit isn't for me.

I fill a bathtub with warm water, and take my first dump on a toilet in what seems like years. You’d have to experience shiting off the side of a ship to really grasp how uncomfortable it is. I use a wet wipe and walk over to the bath. As I sink down into the warm water I feel my body really relax for the first time in so long. As I sit there, I pull out my phone to look at the news. Wow, this is some pretty intense backlash…

Rio Grande’s gaming division is under fire for disabling skill leveling in ‘A New Breed of Pirate’. ‘A New Breed of Pirate’ is finally starting to show bugs that all MMORPGs tend to have, and this one is bad. Players outraged with the lack of a timeline for the disabled skill leveling. How does a game with one of the world’s most advanced AI have a bug this big hiding in the code? What players benefited the most from the latest glitch? This is what our experts say.

Welp, I don’t really need to get into all that. It’s not like that gonna affect me anymore. I get out of the bath, dry myself off, and grab a nutritional supplement from the kitchen. I make myself comfy at my desk, and I go through all the steps to log into my Rio Grande account. I check my standing and my income, but there hasn’t been enough time to pass for the system to update. I spend the next few hours reading forums, until a come across something interesting. There is a player that’s trying to compile a list of tonics and serums. She’s asking other players to send in any enhancements they’ve received. I think about sending mine in, but I honestly don’t want anyone knowing I can regrow body parts. I check the time on my watch and see I only have about 10 minutes left before I need to log in. I start getting everything ready to login, but a notification distracts me.

System Notification

Dear Player,

Our development team has been working tirelessly for the last 24 hours to implement a fix to the bug in our last patch. This patch should alleviate any problems with the skill levels. The problem that we encountered was a resetting of levels values. Basically, the patch treated everyone as if they had level one skills when your body was uploaded into the game. So, any skills you had when you first started playing were treated as level one in regards to the XP needed to level up. This wasn’t a huge problem for the vast majority of players, but the select few individuals that had the ‘.01 XP Modifier’ in the beginning had the majority of their skills treated as if they were sub-level ten. These skill levels will not be taken away from you since it was caused by an error on our part. Now that our emergency patch has been implemented, players can expect another update in one weeks time.

Happy Pirating,

Ceto

That message doesn't seem much like the others. I've never gotten a message from Ceto without a postscript. I wonder what the hell that means?