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Maxi gasped as she woke up in her chair, air filling her empty lungs, her face and hair crusted with a green ick. Her Office Pool surrounded her with expressions of either reverence or hate, maybe a little of both. It was hard to tell since she didn’t know them very well. She expected to see her yellow shirt covered in the same green filth that coated Farhad’s clothes, hair, and skin, but it was surprisingly unblemished, unlike her pants covered in the yuck.
She had died, and the chair had resurrected her. Not that she had ever thought about her own mortality before, but she had never imagined she’d check off “come back from the dead” in her “things I did with my life” list. There was a small part of her that feared it wouldn’t have worked, but here she was after being caught in a cloud of... She sniffed her hair and almost vomited. She was definitely alive. Nothing like the churning of her insides to remind her she was still there.
She looked down at her chair in awe. She could barely imagine how it would change the mundane world. It didn’t make sense why the company would hoard the technology for themselves. Even if it was the soulless entity that only valued human life in terms of how much profit it could extract from her person, they would make trillions on sales of the chair alone.
“Don’t ever die on a raid again!” Daisuke hollered.
“At least where we can’t drag you back,” Yancy interrupted, and Daisuke glared at him.
“Janitorial had to pick you and Farhad up,” Daisuke continued berating her. “I personally think you owe us 1000 credits each, but I was outvoted on that point. That being said, your stunt brought us to Tier 11.”
“11.5,” Yancy corrected.
“Whatever. Just don’t do it again,” Daisuke said.
“Don’t do it again?” Maxi protested. “You should be thanking me, or have you forgotten one of us will die by the end of the month if we don’t get to Tier 9?”
“Working off that kind of debt will guarantee we stay at the bottom!” Daisuke yelled. “We need credits to go on quests! Instead, we’ll be stuck doing menial labor for the entire month, missing out on all the XP and credits from the quests we could have been doing.”
“They charge you credits for quests?” Maxi said, incredulous. During her brief time at her computer, she hadn’t seen a credit cost on any of her available quests.
“You think Farhad’s bullets are free? Or Patti’s healing supplies?”
“Gotta have money to make money,” Flav said. “Anything above menial labor and subsistence level living costs credits here.”
“The sooner you get that through your thick head, the better off you’ll be,” Daisuke added. “You’re gonna owe another 50 credits for taking a second shower, which you should do because you are stinking up the place. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have debt to work off.”
Daisuke sat down at his computer and put on headphones. Patti and Flav wordlessly turned their attention to their monitors. Farhad retrieved a fresh pair of clothes from his cubicle and summoned the bathroom from the door. Yancy was the only one who lingered.
“It’s as much a game of resources as it is heroics,” Yancy said. “You know how superheroes trash half of New York while fighting the super villain? They get to walk away and eat shawarma while someone else cleans up. Here, they get the bill from that someone else.”
Yancy continued, “We all have our maintenance costs. Flav has his armor. Daisuke pays money to keep his swords razor sharp and repair the armor he wears under his clothes. Then, if you want to live in more than this office and a sleeping capsule, that costs money, too. The point is that most players spend what they make and don’t keep much on the side. We can’t afford a hefty bill, and going on quests with broken equipment is likely to leave you more in debt if Janitorial has to drag your body back here.”
“It’s sounds like it would be better for everyone if I just went to a new Office Pool.”
“You can only get into a new Office Pool by invitation.”
“You don’t get into a new Office Pool when you go up in Tier?”
“No. Take Farhad, he is Tier 9.6, that’s why we are Lus3rs. He has the naming permissions, the overriding vote, etc. The only reason he’s here is because the last time a boss raid failed, his whole Pool got dropped to the bottom Tiers when the 10 through 12 were let go. Then, once you’re in an Office Pool with Cumulative Tier of 10 or lower, pretty much anyone could be on the chopping block. It doesn’t matter your Tier; it matters your performance for the month. If he doesn’t perform better than at least one of us for the month, it’s lights out. That’s why none of his original teammates are here. One bad month, and you are gone.”
“What if I get sick?” Maxi asked.
“Don’t get sick. But since all of us are stuck with menial labor until we have positive credits, you can do us a favor by questing every day. But fair warning, don’t die more than once a day. You get one free respawn each day. After that—”
“They charge you,” Maxi said, with a resigned sigh. Then, after a moment’s thought, she added, “Yancy, ever thought of leaving this place? Buying a day off and never coming back?”
“My mom needs dialysis treatments. Have you ever tried to pay for dialysis treatments without insurance?”
Truth be told, Maxi had never even thought about insurance. She was on her mom’s plan and just used the doctor when she needed. Not that she needed to go all that much. A couple of times when she had been sick as a kid and when she had broken her ankle in high school during volleyball. Her mom had paid for everything, and Maxi still didn’t know what it had cost.
However, from Yancy’s expression, she deduced it hadn’t been cheap, and judging from the shit wages she had gotten at pretty much any job she had ever worked, she wouldn’t even be able to afford an apartment of her own, much less any medical bills. She mumbled a sympathetic response, and Yancy wandered back to his desk.
Since the smell was getting bad, she decided to hit the shower next. She was going to have to wear her black pants because the +1 Khakis were covered in filth from the raid boss. Buying new ones wasn’t an option—she couldn’t afford any purchases—and she assumed that, like everything else, laundry service would cost her money. She pulled out her phone to consult with Terry and found the aftermath messages.
QUEST (RAID) “DEFEAT ANTITRUST LAWYER”:
GOAL: Participate in daily defense of the Company. COMPLETE.
Boss: 11351543112/12000000000
Time to next raid 22:49:53 with the seconds ticking down.
Lus3rs contributed 100 damage.
Player Contribution:
Office Maxi: 100 damage.
Daisuke Hax: 0 damage.
Farhad Lus3r: 0 damage.
XxPattixX: 0 damage.
Lots’O’Flav: 0 damage.
Yancy: 0 damage.
And then there were the battle logs for her individual performance.
Rolling Critical Hit: 100 damage.
Bonus XP
+3 Levels
+4 Luck
+1 Ambition
+6 Stats
+12 SP
Awards: 300 credits.
Legendary Item Unlocked: +2 Shirt of Growth.
Janitorial Clean Up Fee: 3000 per player. Players Farhad Lus3r and Office Maxi charged to the Office Pool.
Her credit balance was in the negative, but not quite as bad as she had expected because of the rewards. She checked the market for a stapler of binding. It could get her 500 of the way back to positive, but she decided she’d see how questing would do for her first.
Her +2 Shirt of Protection had gone from common status to legendary. She was about to ask her office mates about it, but they were all laser focused on their computers. She decided to ask Terry via chat instead.
“Legendary Item Unlocked. What’s that mean?”
“Each item has a .00000000001% chance of being legendary, with that percentage being influenced by Luck,” he replied. “While no XP awards are given for discovering a legendary item, there is a bonus based on Level added to the Luck stat.”
She found it peculiar that she had beat the odds on just her second mission, but then again, someone always had to win the lottery eventually, no matter how minuscule the odds were. But, when she combined that with the fact she had scored a critical hit on the boss with a weapon that should have only done 1 damage, the odds of two such events happening in a row just didn’t occur in real life.
She could buy a lottery ticket every day for the rest of her life and never win, but somehow, she had done the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket from two different countries and won them both on the same day. That kind of luck just didn’t happen, and it was also unfortunate that the bonus to the luck stat was based on player Level, because 4 points seemed a crappy reward.
She typed to Terry: “What’s a rolling critical hit?”
“Each time a critical hit is rolled, there is a chance to roll another one. A rolling critical hit means that subsequent critical hits were rolled in a row to score bonus criticals. While there is no upward limit for boss battles, PVP and PVE rolling criticals are limited by the Luck stat.”
The chances of what had occurred now seemed comparable to purchasing hundreds of winning lottery tickets on the same day. She attempted to explain her thought process to Terry, and while most AI would start to wig out when the conversation got past frequently asked questions, Terry seemed to pick up on her poor attempt to explain it.
“Luck events cluster around each other. Rolling well during a Luck check can add bonuses to subsequent Luck rolls during each encounter. Thus, when you scored the critical hit and your shirt encountered the noxious gas, rolling well on one influenced the other. Items only get one Luck check in their existence for legendary status, and that happens after the first time they are used. Since your shirt roll happened after you scored the rolling critical hit, the lucky roll increased your chances of discovering a legendary item, which happened after the raid was over during the aftermath step. Phases of the encounters are all outlined in your Employee Handbook. Would you like me to—”
“Naw,” Maxi said. “I get it.”
She never was much of an instruction manual reader and always did her best through trial and error, as well as experimentation. She’d only dive into a Reddit when she had a question no experimentation could answer.
Terry sent her another chat. “Luck can go both ways. A poor Luck roll can decrease subsequent luck rolls for the encounter, including discovering cursed items. Thus, the adage, ‘when it rains, it pours.’”
She closed the chat window with Terry and pulled up her +2 Shirt of Growth. While it was cool to get lucky, she once again felt shafted by being lower Level. A legendary shirt seemed useless in the long run, but maybe it would solve her credit problem unless it offered her some obvious advantage for any of her immediate quests. While an overpowered low-level armor might be good for her introductory quests, the shirt wouldn’t even compare to a higher-level common item. She hoped for the best and clicked on the “more information” button.
The “of growth” subtype adapts to player needs. She huffed, pulled up her chat window with Terry, then tapped: “What’s the deal with my shirt?”
“It is a legendary item. The most powerful that can be acquired by any employee.”
“I’m going to need a little more than that. What does it mean to ‘adapt to player needs?’”
“As you progress, it will progress with you, unlocking greater augmentations.”
“Like?”
“Each employee has their own unique journey, and it’s hard to predict exactly what augment will manifest. I can provide you with a list if you’d like.”
“Sure.”
The screen rapidly scrolled through what seemed like an endless amount of text that had names like Poison Cantrip, Poison Chop, Poison Clamp, Poison Clear, Poison Control, Poison Crab, Poison Crate, and Poison Ultimate 80s Hair Metal Collection. By each entry, there was a minuscule percentage that was modified by her Luck ability.
The list was too large for her to take in all at once, but she figured it would be useful not so much for what her shirt could do, but perhaps for figuring out what potential item combination would serve her the best. She imagined that if she ever found a Poison Crab broadsword (whatever that meant), she’d be able to search the list for something to pair with it.
The list was lacking in “more information” buttons, but it was a good place to start. Being that she was more of a search-the-internet-when-you-need-answers than a read-stuff-for-knowledge kind of gal, a massive list was a good place to look for search terms at the very least. She copied and pasted the chat transcript and put it in her cloud storage under the name “ITEM TAGS.”
She clicked back to the item and looked at it again. Other than the mythic orange glow of the name, and the word “common” switching to “legendary,” nothing else seemed to have changed. She resisted the urge to sell it for a quick fix to her credit problem and decided to pull up the quest list.
Most of them were low-level fetch quests like “Bring a staple remover to Todd in Accounting,” or “Photocopy a few briefs for Jake in Legal.” She accepted one of the quests without a time limit, thinking it would be some easy credits if she could complete it during a more profitable quest. As an avid gamer, she knew that sometimes it was worth quest stacking if she happened to be going in the same direction anyway.
Before she could read the details of “Fetch Quest for Bobby,” she noticed one labeled ONGOING QUEST: “PRINTER OF NEVER JAMMING PART I” that was categorized as an epic story quest granting rewards based on performance and player Level. More importantly, it was the only epic quest that didn’t have a player Level prerequisite.
“Terry,” Maxi typed. “What’s an ongoing quest?”
“Ongoing quests have multiple parts, and once you accept, additional parts can be assigned to you at any time once you meet certain criteria.”
“Such as?”
“The completion of the previous part for one, but sometimes certain events, items, or other trigger conditions are required to move to the next part.”
“Okay, so I gotta complete part I to get to part II, then I just accept the next one?”
“The subsequent quest will appear in your quest log when the trigger conditions are met. By accepting the first one, it’s implied you accept all subsequent parts.”
The only other quests where she met the requirements were rated as common and paid anywhere from 10 to 50 credits, which wouldn’t be much better than menial labor for knocking out her debt.
“An epic quest it is,” she muttered to herself.
If it turned out to be too deadly or difficult, she’d bail, dump the shirt for a quick sale on the market, and hopefully even have enough credits for an hour of time off. She figured that once she was out of the building, she’d be free.
But first, she needed to shower.