Ava stared down at the spreadsheet displayed on her screen, tapping her stylus against her teeth with a soft click. “Just two hundred dollars, huh? Just.” She laughed bitterly, tossing the stylus down on her desk and leaning back to stare blankly at the ceiling.

Ever since her mother had lost her battle with cancer the year before, Ava had been drowning in debt. Not that she begrudged the expense, since every moment she gained with her mom had been worth any price, but she was just so…tired.

Shoving the chair back away from the desk, she stared at the pod sitting in the corner of her small, studio apartment. It was the last thing she had that was worth selling, but the thought of giving it up made her heart ache like it would crumble into a thousand pieces. The pod had been her mother’s last gift to her, before the diagnosis, and playing Veritas Online was Ava’s only relief from the stress and fear that had been her daily companions since the doctors delivered the news.

“I’ll try one more time,” she muttered, standing. She glanced at the clock. She had six hours before she had to go to work at the grocery store, and after that, she had a full shift at VaVaVoom, a clothing store that catered primarily to drag queens and crossdressers.

Honestly, she should sleep for most of that six hours, but if she played for three, she’d get six hours, thanks to the fact that Veritas somehow doubled the processing speed of the player’s brain. Or at least that was what Ava assumed, since no one actually knew how it worked. The creators of Veritas, Veritas Corporation, had recently announced that they would be releasing some of the technology that allowed their ground-breaking system to work, and it seemed like the whole world was waiting to see how that would play out.

The whole world except for people like Ava, of course. Things like earth-shaking technological breakthroughs were something that wouldn’t affect her until they managed to trickle down through all of the scientists, governments, and multinational corporations who would get first dibs. Which was fine, because Ava was only able to feed and clothe herself because of the employee discounts she got through her various jobs.

Speaking of jobs, the last one was off the books. She hired herself out like a slave in Veritas in exchange for money in the real world. Thankfully, there was no sex or even nudity in Veritas, so she didn’t have to deal with those kinds of propositions, but that didn’t mean people treated her like a real human being.

She laughed a bit at her inadvertent joke, even as she pulled on her worn bodysuit.

Her pod had been sending her warnings that the nanomaterial was wearing thin and would soon provide a ‘sub-optimal experience’, but there was nothing she could do about that. Until someone figured out how to bling out the suits, VaVaVoom wouldn’t carry them, and there was no way Ava could afford a new one without some kind of discount.

She climbed into her pod and tugged the headset down over her face. Lying back, she blinked open her eyes, staring at the hovering Veritas Online splash screen. “System,” she murmured, “start Veritas.”

Without further ado, Ava’s dark, lonely, sad little world fell away.

❦ ❦ ❦

Alpha opened her eyes and sat up with a grunt. As always, it took a moment to adjust to the small tusks that protruded between her lips, and she swiped at the corner of her mouth, carefully wiping away drool. If someone had told her she’d have so much trouble with the darn things, she’d have opted to create a more human-looking half-orc. Still, when she’d wiped her old character, she hadn’t exactly been looking to make friends, and her brutish appearance made for a far different play experience than her original High elf character.

Alpha stood slowly. She wasn’t exactly short in real life, but at nearly seven feet tall, her inhuman avatar was much taller than she was used to. If the tusks were the first thing she noticed, her height was the second. Someday, she’d have to invest more stat points into dexterity, since she’d heard that could help if your real body was significantly different from your in-game body.

Not that that was exactly easy to do, since Veritas based your avatar’s appearance on your own, and prevented you from altering it too much. She’d heard that the idea was to prevent players from using anonymity as a shield, since if your behavior could lead to real-life consequences when someone recognized you, you were less likely to be a complete and total dick-wad.

She snorted, a much more imposing sound coming from her slightly piggish snout than anything she could produce in real life. There were ways around anything, and while she gave the developers kudos for their efforts, all someone had to do was wear a mask or helmet, and all bets were off. Or, if they were really determined, they could do what she’d done, and choose one of the half-monster races. While she could still see her original face in her orcish features, she doubted anyone else other than her mother could have done so.

Her eyes burned at the thought of her mother, and she scrubbed at them with one grayish-skinned hand. What was it with the devs that they allowed drooling and snot bubbles, but wouldn’t let someone cry? Though she had been grateful for that more than once in the early days, since it allowed her to keep her composure when she would otherwise have broken down sobbing. In fact, she had logged into Veritas more than once simply to escape the physical symptoms of devastating grief.

Sighing, she stood and began grabbing pouches off the floor. Alpha spent most nights sleeping in the Dead Tent, which was within the non-combat zone surrounding the Traveler’s Guild. Players were known as Travelers in Veritas, and their backstory was that they were people from another world who used magic to transport their souls into new bodies here in this world.

Because of this, when a player logged out, their avatar, or Zombie, was left behind, and while it couldn’t be moved, it could easily be killed, since it had no defensive capabilities. Most players gave their Zombies instructions to find the nearest Inn or Dead Tent and rest until they logged in again. The benefit of the Dead Tent was that it was significantly cheaper than an Inn, though it was certainly lacking in amenities.

Alpha strapped her last pouch onto the one of the belts crisscrossing her chest, and shrugged, trying to get all of the dangling bits to hang comfortably. She was, for lack of a better word, a pack mule, and she’d learned a long time ago that being comfortable beat looking good any day. Wincing in anticipation, she reached out and opened the hanging curtain that blocked the small, silent room in which she’d awakened, stepping out into chaos.

“Buy Lunar Moth Wings, only six silver each! I have five hundred!”

“Looking for a cleric for a Barrow run! Must be at least level sixty!”

“Need two custom dual-”

Voices and bodies surrounded her, and she stopped, an island in the midst of a raging river. No NPCs could enter the space close to a Dead Tent unless they were in a party with a player. It was only recently that the ability to add NPCs to a party had been patched in, and since the average NPC was much weaker than any player character, very few people even bothered hiring them.

That meant that everyone surrounding her was a player. A real person, with their own needs, interests, and lives. And Alpha didn’t give a damn about a single one of them. If she could have left them all behind and gone out to live alone in the wilderness, she would have done so gladly. Unfortunately, she needed something from them.

With a twitch of a clawed finger, she opened the interface for the Traveler’s Guild bulletin board. This was where quests and requests were posted. For Sale signs mingled with notices about people looking to buy something. She almost laughed as a note from one person selling Ant Jaws slid by right after one looking for someone wanting to buy Ant Jaws. Human beings were stupid.

A few deft movements separated the notices into categories, and she dismissed all the ones she wasn’t interested in. What was left was a short list. Unusually short, in fact. It looked like someone else was clearing Help Wanted tasks, and she gritted her teeth as she saw what remained.

Three.

The first one was an easy no. A mage and a warrior were looking for a distance damage dealer and a healer to head into the newbie forest north of Bright. Not only did Alpha not fit either of those categories, the rewards would never be enough to make up for that two hundred dollar shortfall in her budget.

The second was a possibility. Two members of the Angelic Embers guild were planning an exploratory mission into the area east of Bloodhaven, and needed someone to carry their items. According to game lore, that area had been part of the prosperous human nation of Quarternell before their borders intruded on the expanding lands of Lich Lord Akuji. Akuji’s army had devastated the area, and people would occasionally find a map or receive a quest that gave the location of some dungeon or lost treasure.

The downside was that these exploratory missions were exactly that. Exploratory. They might find untold riches, or they might find diddly squat. It was impossible to know. Also, they might be back within a few hours, or the mission might take days, and Alpha couldn’t commit to something with such an uncertain schedule.

Reluctantly, Alpha flicked that notice away, too. She’d heard good things about Angelic Embers. They were one of the few all-female guilds, and avoiding males and their compulsion to dominate and posture was always a good thing. Not to mention that their guild leader, Doom Bloom, was a Hero of the Realm, and as a result, her entire guild gained boosts to reputation gains. Which Alpha could definitely use, since as a half-orc, pretty much all NPCs hated her on sight.

With a scowl, she popped open the last advert. She already knew she didn’t want this one, simply based on its original poster. The Forceworn Guild had been one of the powerhouses of Veritas until very recently. She didn’t know exactly what the deal had been, but even she had heard that several of the high-ranking members had been banned from the game for life, a punishment that no one had even realized was an option until it happened. She’d even heard rumors that one of the highest rankers had gone to jail for whatever he’d been doing, but she suspected that was the usual overblown hyperbole.

LOOKING FOR MULE FOR BLACK CATACOMB RUN. NO WIMPS. BRING YOUR OWN BAGS. LEAVING AT 15:30, HARD. -FG

Quite aside from the message being in aggressive caps, the ‘no wimps’ part set her teeth on edge. ‘Mules’ were people who had acquired a large number of spatial bags and would use them to carry excess items when a person or group ventured into an area where the amount of loot was likely to exceed the amount of inventory space. Strength and stamina were their most important stats, and none of the successful ones were ‘wimps’.

Veritas had a fairly simple inventory system. The base inventory held one hundred slots, each of which could hold up to 99 identical items. Anything worn by the player did not count against this total, and it wasn’t uncommon for someone who ran out of space to wear a number of unidentified items, taking the risk that they might have a negative effect in hopes that they would turn out to be something amazing. That hope was almost always wrong, but it didn’t keep people from trying.

The base inventory was also known as the ‘safe’ inventory. Anything you placed inside could not be stolen or dropped. The same did not hold true for any items held in extra spatial containers, and if a player died while carrying a bag, anything and everything inside could drop. This led to the use of mules.

When a player or group went into a dangerous area, they would hire someone to hang back and hold onto the loot they acquired. The person had to sign a contract to share their inventory logs from the beginning to the end of the hire period, which prevented them from keeping anything that so much as touched their hands. All the party members gave the mule their items, which the mule identified and stored away in the many bags hung about their avatar.

The mule had a Return Scroll, and if it looked like a party wipe might occur, their job was to get the loot safely back to a preselected meeting place, and hand it, and their logs, over. Mules who could use a high-level [Identify] or [Appraisal] skill were highly valued, but the number one requirement was a willingness to be alternately terrified and bored out of your mind.

Mules weren’t allowed to fight. Their one job was to keep the group’s items safe. Even if everyone else was slaughtered around them, they had to stay until they were told to run or it became clear that no one would remain to help them escape. Fighting and healing both attracted aggro from mobs, and so the mules had to do absolutely nothing except carry other players’ junk.

As a result, mules had a reputation for cowardice and weakness. While it was vaguely possible that some mule somewhere had earned that reputation, it wasn’t any of the ones Alpha had met. Standing and letting yourself take damage, depending on others to save you, or watching other people die while being unable to assist…it was incredibly difficult, especially if you liked your team-mates.

Alpha sighed and flicked her gaze at the game clock. It was fifteen fifteen, which was actually good. She didn’t have time to stand around and wait while a group dragged their feet getting ready. If the Forceworn members were ready and willing to pay at least two hundred dollars for her services, she’d go with them. Black Catacomb was well-mapped, so it shouldn’t take longer than six hours to do a run with a decent-sized group, and Forceworn was still a large guild, even after the recent hit to their reputation.

She clicked on the message and sent the poster a reply.

AlphaOmegadon: Two hundred bucks and you have a mule.

R3dLit3: WTF?

AlphaOmegadon: Your ad, dipshit. You need a mule. I’m the best. Two hundred bucks, and I’ll do Black Catacomb with you.

R3dLit3: Two hundred is too much. One hundred.

AlphaOmegadon: Your group leaves in fourteen minutes. Let me know when you change your mind.

Alpha smirked as she closed the chat window. She hadn’t been lying. She was the best. She’d worked hard to make sure that was true, and if the guy bothered asking around, he’d quickly find out. Two hundred was a little high for a BC run, but he needed someone now, and she was, again, the best.

A commotion nearby drew her attention. A small group of boys who looked to be in their late teens or early twenties were arguing amongst themselves in the clear. This close to the Traveler’s Guild, they should have been using private messages, but no, these jerks decided to pollute everyone’s air with their cursing.

Her eyes widened as their words began to sink in, now that she was focusing on them.

“-say we take it. We can always-”

“No way, man! That’s my allowance-”

“-can definitely make it back. C’mon, you cheap-”

Surely, surely these idiots weren’t her potential clients. She knew her luck was crap, but this was really taking it too far…

R3dLit3: Fine. Two hundred when you deliver.

She scowled.

AlphaOmegadon: Half up front.

R3dLit3: F— you.

Alpha snorted. Thankfully, Veritas automatically censored chat. She had a feeling this was a guy who knew exactly one expletive, and used it for absolutely everything.

AlphaOmegadon: Your loss.

She waited, hooking her taloned thumbs into the belt full of bags that dangled from her lean hips. It took less than a minute.

R3dLit3: Whatever. Meet us by the western Dead Tent.

Alpha bared her sharp tusks in victory. The guy might be a jerk, but his money was as good as anyone else’s.