It's only against the rules if you get caught. - Unknown

Your slave was stupid and ugly. - Ea-Nasir, Terra, Bronze Age

Latest patch increases security of passwords and profiles for all customers - Alv'inTek Electronic Entertainment Corporation patch-note.

Jak Smithson (Formerly Major James Winnifred Acharya) bounced the girl baby on his knee, letting her chew on a peeled potato while making ferocious little noises. He watched Goody Matilda Smithson (Formerly Mukantagara Elizabeth Carnight) polish the tabletop with a cloth.

The empty tavern practically oozed domesticism.

He set the baby on the floor and poured two ales into heavy ceramic mugs, setting them both down after making sure they both had a thick head of foam.

The baby immediately crawled over and bit her brother's foot, who then kicked her in the face.

Matilda straightened up, put the rag in her pocket, and headed for the bar. She paused for a second to use her toes to push apart the struggling twins, who crawled off in different directions, then walked up and sat down on one of the stools.

"You've gotten better," she commented. She lifted up the chilled ale, took a long drink, then wiped her face and smiled. "You've been using the tutorial."

"Well, that and serving customers," he said. He shook his head. "You know all about CloneLyfeYo and the Born Whole system in my old line of work, but then you see it applied like this and the sheer power and flexibility of the system suddenly hits home."

Matilda nodded, setting down the mug. "All of our neighbors, the farmers, the trader that came by today, all of them did not exist a week ago," she made a motion to encompass the well worn and cared for tavern. "It looks to be a century old, at least, yet we both know there was nothing here but grass and rocks and sunshine a week ago."

Jak nodded.

"How many Barbary Shop Tokens do you have left?" Matilda asked.

Jak frowned. "Uh..." he lifted on hand and cocked his wrist, then typed quickly on the invisible keyboard. "Six. I bought the avatar customization pack you told me."

Matilda nodded. "Good," she tapped the bar. "Set your left arm down then lean over and kiss me."

Jak smiled. "I like that last part."

They kissed and Matlida kept her mouth next to his ear. "This might burn, but show no sign, Space Force," she said softly.

Her hand caressed his elbow, where a swirling savage tattoo decorated the flesh, even as she kissed him again. Jak felt the burn but ignored it, checking on the twins quickly (both were trying to figure out how to get loose from being stuck under chairs) before shutting his eyes and sinking into the kiss.

When the kiss broke she pulled back and pointed at his arm with one hand, grabbing the chilled mug with the other.

Jak noticed that the frost on the mug dissolved around her hand almost instantly. Heat transfer for some reason.

"Do a GM wakeup request," she said. She pointed at his elbow. "Tell them you have a cosmetic item error for a cash shop purchase."

The tattoo was smeared and warped.

He nodded, going through the motions to bring up the virtual keyboard and screen. He ignored that Matilda did the same, but very carefully, almost like she was trying to avoid being seen.

"Loading up some quick mods," she said softly. "End user mods are legal on this server, mostly for certain managements, but they only work in limited areas," she said.

"Like where?" Jak asked. He grabbed a pottery jar and fished out two pickled eggs, handing her one.

"Why do you think I wanted to do the tutorial so badly?" she asked. "Mods loaded. Now, we wait a minute," she said. She went over and picked up the babies, one under each arm, and carried them over to their feeding seats. Both excitedly pounded on the tray in front of them, babbling in baby-speak. She went over and got the potatoes, dusting them off, and spilled a touch of salt on them before handing them back.

Both babies attacked the raw salted potatoes with their gums, making fierce happy noises babies make when they eat. Matilda stood in front of them, making noises back and twiddling her fingers in front of their faces.

Jak almost jumped when a thin, balding male Terran in a robe appeared.

"No live customer service agent is available. I have been assigned to your trouble ticket. You have requested GM service regarding a cash shop cosmetic item purchase?" it asked.

Jak noted out of the corner of his eye that Matilda had glanced over when he's jumped and was now wiggling her hands in front of both babies' faces while she babbled back at them.

"Yes. My tattoo is smeared," he said, pointing at his arm.

The GM looked it over. "It appears you shifted while having dermal decorations applied during finalization. With your permission, I will repair it," it said.

"Please," Jak said.

The ink shivered and began to move over. There was a slight tingling feeling as the ink shifted back to how it was supposed to look, then shading, opacity, and color matching was applied.

"Your cash shop item has been repaired. Do you require additional admin services?" the GM asked.

He glanced at Matilda, who shook her head slightly and stood up straight.

"No, thank you," Jak said.

"LyfeTek Industries appreciates your patronage," the robed figure said. It then vanished.

"What..." Jak started to ask.

"It's still going to log for the next few hours. Make sure you aren't running cash shop scams," Matilda said. "Help me with the babies. We'll talk once they're asleep."

Jak just nodded.

Matilda was the pro-LARPer.

-----

The night was warm, full of buzzing insects, many of them with twinkling phosphorescent abdomens. The sound of cattle creatures could faintly be heard off in the distance. The stars were bright and shining, the two moons full in the sky.

Jak came out and sat down, handing a bottle of beer to Matilda. Matilda smiled and cracked open the ceramic top of the bottle by pushing on the wire. She took a long drink and looked around for a moment before making a strange motion and cocking her wrist. She typed quickly on the keyboard only she could see and then closed it all.

"Clear?" Jak asked.

Matilda nodded. "Clear."

"I did a Whois earlier," Jak said.

"And found just the two of us online across the entire stellar system. Everything else is NPC Born Whole," Matilda said. She sighed. "It has a melancholy feel, does it not? That we are surrounded by life, yet we are the only four who truly lived."

Jak nodded.

There was silence for a long moment.

"Do you regret it?" Matilda asked.

"Regret what?" Jak asked, setting down the beer.

They kissed again for a moment. When Matilda leaned back she waved at him, a lazy gesture that encompassed his whole body.

"The touch of the Digital Omnimessiah after the War In Heaven. That he restored you to flesh. No longer more metal than meat. That you no longer have the cybernetic and bioware that you had spent centuries honing your skills with," she said.

Jak leaned back, picking up his beer. He stared at the swirling glowing bugs silently for a long moment, sipping on his beer. Finally he set it down.

"No," he said. "This body is more suited to this place. More suited to being with you. With the Xenocide Event, the universe has changed, and I do not regret being almost full meat."

Matilda nodded slowly.

"One of the reasons I chose here, why I stayed so long in the humble forest on Telkan, was to give you time to acclimate to your new body," she said. She took a sip of beer and stared at the insects. "Both of us were changed, deeply, by the War In Heaven and the touch of the Digital Omnimessiah. I believe you were more easily able to adapt to the changes."

Jak frowned. "Changes?"

Matilda nodded, running a hand over her cloth covered legs. "I dress modestly and go about life demurely. No longer am I Lady Khoonkeenadee. I knew that the minute I felt his touch upon my brow. While I am still capable of, and are willing to be, the brash and aggressive warlord I spent over a century as, things have indeed changed with the Xenocide Event."

She was silent for a moment.

"And I had to admit to myself that I had been wrong," she stated.

"Wrong?"

"Yes, Space Force. Wrong. As I often teased my beloved little brother, I had believed that the Confederacy's strength had been spent. As I had fallen into believing that I was stronger, I often mocked my little brother, whose strength was utilized to keep safe myself, my children, and everyone I had ever known," she said softly. "I spoke arrogantly to him, and in doing so, I belittled his life choices."

She was silent again for a long time.

"I mistook restraint for weakness. For horror at just what power they wielded as an unwillingness to bring power to bear," she said. She shook her head. "Through the eyes of the World Engine, I saw the might of the Confederacy revealed when the Ringbreaker was unleashed. When I saw the bravery and the determination of the newest peoples of the Confederacy."

She took another sip of beer, still staring at the insects that floated over the grass.

"I had been wrong. I had been arrogant," she took another sip. "And now I am humbled."

Jak leaned over and hugged her, taking a moment to kiss the side of her head, before keeping her close.

"More than a few times I found myself wondering just what I was fighting to protect. Just what I was putting my life on the line for. It seemed like every time we got a fire put out, some half-wit civilian started another one that threatened to drown the Spur in blood," Jak admitted. "But the Big C3 reminded me of what I was doing. The War In Heaven clinched it."

Matilda nodded and they sat silently for a moment.

Two of the little insects turned red for a moment, then went back to green.

"There was the speech algorithm checking us," she said. She smiled as she took another sip. "Do you know why I encouraged you to do the tutorial, Space Force?"

"So I could get used to this body some more?" Jak asked.

She nodded. "Yes. You are listed as a complete newbie. Which means you have algorithms and VI's watching you in case you need assistance. I am registered as a professional, meaning they don't bother to devote as much VI and algorithm overwatch and investigation to me in the tutorial."

She made a motion at the mountains barely visible in the distance. More dark patches obscuring stars than actual mountains.

Out there, I will be watched constantly to make sure I don't bend the game too far," she said. She smiled. "Which means that here, in the tutorial area, I can do more."

"Like what?" Jak asked.

Matilda rubbed his leg. "Developers spend the most time crafting the tutorial area. This is where they bring in and hook customers. They use the most amount and most powerful of the dev tools here. Including tools to ensure that they can correct any defects in new players."

"Like when it fixed my tattoo."

She nodded. "Right."

"And you snatched its access codes," Jak guessed.

"Right again. They're only good in the tutorial areas, and probably have alerts if I try to nudge at the cash shop," she said. She smiled again. "That's not what I'm going to use them for."

"What's your plan?" Jak asked.

Matilda made a motion. "The tutorial area would normally be expanding rapidly as people took adventuring classes or archetypes, or began to journey around. The VI generated settlements would quickly expand. A kingdom would have already been put in place by the programmers, but the kingdoms and empires are all dead and have been for over five years."

"Right. You explained that," Jak said.

"I'm going to force the system to run a kingdom generation skript. Force it to create the nation, populate it with Born Whole, then put it on dynamic progression," she said. "There's no way I can get close to the World Engine or those systems, nor will I be able to get close to the Born Whole systems, but what I can do is push a dev-skript I've got in some of my wetware."

"Why do you even have that stuff? Where did you get it?" Jak asked.

"All pros keep wetware storage. Mostly for custom templates for your nanite creation organ. Custom skripts you figured out to generate 'spell' effects, or linguistic skripts, stuff like that," she said. "I always keep a few dev-skript samples so I can compare them."

Her smile got wider. "There's only a few programmers that could work on world generation software, and over the decades I got familiar with their work," she made a vague motion at the air. "I recognize this programmer's style and approaches. He's pretty famous in our circles. Reclusive, almost nothing about him beyond his code, his name, and who he works for."

"Anyone I'd know?" Jak smiled.

"Doubtful. He works, or rather, worked for an Omnicorp before the TXE. He did a lot of work on Born Whole systems and neural templates as well as LARP SUDS rebirth systems," Matilda said. She smiled. "He does great work, but he's got a tendency to repeat himself with his coding. I know for a fact he uses several variable names repeatedly for set things, as well as a few of us have hacked out his backdoor passwords."

"Huh, sounds like an egghead," Jak said.

Matilda laughed.

"With all the extensive error catching software, the generation software, and all the other dev-tools that are accessible from the tutorial area, I figure I can push the kingdom generation skript with the variables I set," she said. "I figure fifteen million sentients across the nine races. Six large cities, a pair of seaports, strong military, and good trade, with the surrounding areas being territory of large city states with populations of a couple millions, I should get what I'm after."

Jak frowned. "What's that?"

"Stable breeding pool of only marginally altered humans," she said. "One thing about that programmer, he always has error catching and garbage collection happen at roughly the same triggers. I activate those triggers, it'll run the error catching and garbage collection, and I'll be able to access the dev tools."

"Sounds complicated," Jak grinned. "Mind if I just sit here and drink beer?"

"As long as you have some for me," she said. She gave him a sideways look. "The children are over a year old, we are safe and secure here for as long as we remain spec'd as commoners. My belly is ripening and I want something from you."

Jak grinned. "I think I can handle that part."

Her smile grew mischievous. "You have so far."

"Hey, do you know that programmer's name?" Jak asked.

Matilda nodded. "Indeed I do. Back when we were trying to social media scrape him only to discover he has no social media presence."

"What is it?" Jak asked.

Matilda shrugged. "Executive Programmer Darsh Chasu Igwe. He works for Nexus-Sigma Omnicorp, which LyfeTek Industries is a subsidiary of. A genius."